https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2021/07/29/grass-valley-cyberattack-ransom/
Exploit: Ransomware
Ransomware: Municipality
Risk to Business: 2.223=Severe
Municipalities have been ripe targets for cybercriminals, and they’ve scored another payday in Grass Valley, California. City services except emergency services experienced outages and the city ultimately chose to pay the ransom, citing data privacy concerns for its citizens. Grass Valley officials said the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was contacted. Several state agencies are still investigating. Services were restored after the ransom payment. Federal agencies including CISA and the FBI strongly discourage paying ransoms which is illegal in many circumstances.
Individual Impact:
PThere has not yet been confirmation that consumer personal or financial information has been compromised in this incident but the investigation is ongoing.
Customers Impacted: 55,000
How it Could Affect Your Customers’ Business Cybercriminals have been striking municipalities and similar authorities frequently. Historically poor cybersecurity combined with a tendency to simply pay ransoms makes this a growth industry for cybercrime.
Risk Levels:
1 - 1.5 = Extreme Risk
1.51 - 2.49 = Severe Risk
2.5 - 3 = Moderate Risk
*The risk score is calculated using a formula that considers a wide range of factors related to the assessed breach.
