Genesee County hit by a ransomware attack

• The ransomware attack led to the shut down of the County’s computers. Moreover, their email was also hacked in the attack.
• The County is working with its partners to restore regular operations and has notified its residents that services will be extremenly limited for a specific period of time.

What is the issue - Genesee County was hit by ransomware attack on April 02, 2019.

Why it matters - The ransomware attack led to the shut down of the County’s computers. Moreover, their email was also hacked in the attack.

The big picture

Genesee County posted on its Facebook page that its computer networks were infected by a ransomware attack. It disclosed that attackers encrypted the data stored in the computers and that they are demanding ransom payment was decrytpion. However, Genesee County confirmed that it has not paid any ransom amount and that no information has been compromised.

• Genesee County has notified Michigan State Police and the FBI about the incident.
• The County’s IT department is working to restore its email services and prevent further encryption.
• Meanwhile, the County is working with its partners to restore regular operations and has notified its residents that services will be extremenly limited for a specific period of time.

“Protecting our data continues to be our primary focus. As such, Genesee County continues to assess, with our partners, the best way to restore regular operations. Residents should be aware that services will be extremely limited for some time as we work to rectify this attack. This is going to be a slow and deliberate process. We appreciate your patience during this time,” Genesee County said.

Worth noting - After almost 4 days of extensive hard work, Genesee County finally restored its email services on April 06, 2019. However, it is still working to restore normal services across other departments.

“Due to the aggressiveness of the attack, there has been a setback in our initial expectations for the restoration to normal service across all departments. Our goal of having regular operations restored on Monday morning will not be met,” Genesee County said in a Facebook post.