Exploit: Ransomware
City of Grass Valley, CA: 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.
Customers Impacted: Unknown
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.
Source: Sacramento CBS Local