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Cities and Municipalities in North Rhine-Westphalia Offline after Cyberattack

October 30, 2023

The municipal service provider Südwestfalen IT (SIT) said it was hit by a ransomware attack on the night from Sunday to Monday (October 30). In order to contain the attack, all connections to the data center were severed. This affects 72 member municipalities in South Westphalia. As the regional newspaper Sauerland Kurier reports, it is assumed in the Hochsauerland district that the IT failure will last several days. Most administrations can only be reached by telephone because email traffic is also affected, the report says.

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Cyberattack Affects Platform used by 12 Government Ministries in Norway

July 24, 2023

The Norwegian government is warning that its ICT platform used by 12 ministries has suffered a cyberattack after hackers exploited a zero-day vulnerability in third-party software.

This platform is used by twelve ministries in the country, except for the Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The hackers might have accessed and/or exfiltrated sensitive data from the ICT system, leading to a data breach.

Despite the compromised platform’s critical role in the government’s daily operations, the recent cyberattack will not necessitate a halt in work activities.

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Widespread System Outages after Cyberattack at Bermuda Government

September 20, 2023

A major cyberattack has hobbled government operations in Bermuda, with officials struggling to restore service. “It is clear that this was a sophisticated and deliberate attack that has resulted in unprecedented stress on basic government systems,” Premier David Burt said. The resulting widespread internet outages affected all government agencies and more.

“After the attack that the government is slowly restoring operations after being hit by a “very sophisticated” cyberattack a week ago. An in-depth forensic audit is underway to determine how the attack occurred, and so far, experts have not uncovered evidence that sensitive data was stolen:”, Premier David Burt said. He declined to say whether it was a ransomware attack.

All systems were immediately taken offline, and network use was strategically abandoned. The Government’s focus has been on safely restoring system functionality, particularly those systems that support providing services to the public.

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Databreach at European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI)

September 27, 2023

On 27 September 2023 the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) reported that hackers have stolen a database identifying its users.
It is not yet clear whether the attack was financially motivated or if the hackers had intended to acquire the list of users for espionage purposes.

Following the incident, ETSI, which is based in the Sophia Antipolis technology park in the French Riviera, said it brought in France’s cybersecurity agency ANSSI “to investigate and repair the information systems.” The nonprofit said the “vulnerability on which the attack was based has been fixed,” although it did not identify the vulnerability.

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NoName Hits Swiss Governments and Rail sites with DDoS Attack

June 12, 2023

Swiss federal government websites and the online portal of the Swiss Federal Railways have been victims of malicious online attacks. Several websites of the federal administration are currently unavailable, Swiss public radio, SRF, reported on Monday.

According to the finance ministry, the sites were hit by a so-called DDoS attack, which aims to overload websites and applications with targeted requests so that they are no longer accessible. No data is lost in a DDoS attack.

The pro-Russian hacker group “NoName” has claimed responsibility for the attack on the federal government on its own Telegram channel, Tages-Anzeiger newspaper said. This group was also behind the attack on the Swiss parliament website (www.parlament.chExternal link) last week.

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Longbeach, CA Declares State of Emergency after Cyberattack

November 14, 2023

The City of Long Beach in the US state of California suffered a significant network security incident. The attack forced officials to take several of its systems offline and announce a state of emergency.

All public safety systems, including the Emergency Communications Centre and emergency response from Police and Fire haven’t been impacted by the cyber attack. Systems connected to the network were taken offline out of an abundance of caution to mitigate the impact of the cyber attack.

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British Library Systems Disrupted for Weeks after Ransomware Attack

October 27, 2023

In late October, the British Library first disclosed it was experiencing an unspecified cybersecurity incident that caused a “major technology outage” across its sites in London and Yorkshire, which downed its website, phone lines, and on-site services, such as visitor Wi-Fi and electronic payments.

Two weeks on, and the British Library outage is still ongoing. However, the organization has now confirmed the disruption is the result of a ransomware attack launched “by a group known for such criminal activity.” The British Library said that some internal data has leaked online, which “appears to be from our internal HR files.”
The British Library said in its latest statement that it could take weeks, or possibly even longer, for it to recover from the ransomware attack.

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Data Breach at Idaho National Labs

November 19, 2023

Federal research center, Idaho National Laboratory (INL), experienced a massive data breach Sunday night, leading to the leak of employee addresses, Social Security numbers, and bank account information.
The breach is under investigation and federal law enforcement is involved, said INL media spokesperson Lori McNamara. INL is part of the United States Department of Energy (DoE). Historically, the lab has been involved with nuclear research, although the laboratory does other research as well. Battelle Energy Alliance for the DoE’s Office of Nuclear Energy manages INL.

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Cyberattack at American Meterological Institute

April 24, 2023

On Monday, 24 April 2023, we discovered that some of our systems has been impacted by an encryption/ransomware attack. The perpetrator encrypted AMS servers, making them inaccessible.

The Cactus Blog leak site reported the attack on July 20.

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