Ransomware attacks so far are on the rise in January! Especially, this recent ransomware attack towards Bernalillo County in New Mexico. On Wednesday, January 5th, 2022, Bernalillo County officials told all of their offices to temporarily close. Why? Let’s take a closer look into what’s going on over at Bernalillo County in New Mexico.
A news article was released from KOB 4, in New Albuquerque, New Mexico that day. The author, Jonathan Fjeld states that “The county discovered what they believed to be a ransomware attack on the county systems. The county took the affected systems offline and severed network connections in response, causing county officials to be able to access those systems. Bernalillo County spokesman, Tom Thorpe, also said that he was unaware of any demand being received in connection with the suspected attack. All public safety departments, including 911 communications, the Sheriff's office, will be operating normally using backup contingencies, and community centers will also remain open. Employees will work remotely Wednesday to assist the public as much as possible, but MDC is also canceled all visits for today.”
Do you live in this county? Is this close to your home in New Mexico? Love to hear your thoughts on what your experiencing with this being an issue in your town or county. Meanwhile, this can happen to any county or town in United States. As a matter of fact, in the last two years, municipal governments have been one of the most successfully targeted entities when it comes to ransomware and ransomware groups. People and businesses just find that municipal governments just aren't dedicating the budget. Remember what happened out in Baltimore County, Maryland, getting hit pretty hard with ransomware. Now, they're spending a significant amount of money into cyber security. Unfortunately, it takes these types of attacks for government officials to wake up and realize that this is a problem, and that dedication to time, money, resources, and ensuring technology is up to date is so businesses no longer have to deal with ransom attacks.
Not doubting, there will be more in the coming days, but this is another type of event that's not being covered too crazy in the mainstream media. Many people will find this in the local news and probably New Mexico and news out in the Southwest. Yet, it won’t make it into national level media which is shocking. The population needs to know that this stuff is going on and these entities are being extorted for millions of dollars. In fact, ransomware attacks are happening multiple times every day and this isn’t the only ransomware attack that is being covered.
Likewise, another U.S. government, local government entity was attacked by ransomware, in Bernalillo County called Albuquerque, New Mexico. Sad to say but the town is going to suffer. The people are going to suffer. Services are going to suffer until they get this back up. Along with other ransomware attacks, it's probably going to be multiple weeks before things start to come back up and online.
Xact IT Solutions will try to keep you posted as we get more information. Follow-up videos will help but sometimes it’s hard because there isn’t a whole lot of information on these ransomware attacks. Also, people notice when they do happen because things are down, things are closed, then insurance companies get involved, lawyers get involved, and then information becomes very hard to come by. So, that's how it works and the kind of world we have to live in.
Hopefully, in the coming years, people realize that ransomware attacks are real. Also, there are companies out there to help you and your business not get hacked like this. Prevention is much better than having to deal with what's on the other side of this.
