Wisconsin county dealing with ransomware attack on public health department

pppA county in Wisconsin is responding to a ransomware attack that targeted its public health department and forced officials to take some systems offlineppOfficials in Rock County Wisconsin told Recorded Future News that they experienced a cyberattack on September 29 that affected several of their computer systemsppThe attack targeted the Rock County Public Health Department which serves more than 160000 people across 25 cities villages and towns in the area The county is about an hour away from both Madison and MilwaukeeppThe Rock County Public Health Department DHSWI a government health care agency in Wisconsin UnitedStates has reportedly been hacked by Cuba ransomware group pictwittercomnj52nrVbL5ppWe responded quickly to this incident by taking systems down to prevent further impact and are working with thirdparty specialists to securely bring our systems back online as quickly as possible County Administrator Josh Smith saidppSince some systems are not yet fully operational this may temporarily impact certain County operations However the public should experience minimal service disruption at this time We are investigating the full nature and scope of this event as well as its impact to any data in our systemsppSmith added that they are working to fully restore the system and will provide updates to local residents as they progressppThe attack was claimed by the Cuba ransomware gang on Tuesday The gang which has no relation to the country did not say how much data was stolen but said the information included financial documents tax information and moreppResearchers at Google and Ukraines Computer Emergency Response Team believe that the criminals behind the ransomware may be connected to the Russian state as they have been seen targeting government systems in Ukraine and MontenegroppIn November 2022 the FBI and other US agencies said the group launched attacks against 100 organizations around the world and brought in 60 millionppMunicipalities in Wisconsin have faced a barrage of attacks over the last year Ransomware hackers shut down a school district serving nearly 20000 students one year ago and caused a catastrophic software failure in Langlade County in July That attack by the LockBit ransomware gang crippled the countys sheriffs office and forced 911 calls to be reroutedppIn addition to ransomware Wisconsins state court system was hit with a distributed denialofservice DDoS attack in March that caused issuesppJonathan Greig is a Breaking News Reporter at Recorded Future News Jonathan has worked across the globe as a journalist since 2014 Before moving back to New York City he worked for news outlets in South Africa Jordan and Cambodia He previously covered cybersecurity at ZDNet and TechRepublicpp Copyright 2023 The Record from Recorded Future Newsp