As the federal and state governments have worked to enhance their cybersecurity infrastructure, cyber criminals have now seemingly set their sights on a new and, evidently, far more vulnerable target: cities and towns.
Texas learned this the hard way earlier this month when more than 20 smaller local government entities were targeted in what authorities say is a coordinated ransomware attack.
It’s not difficult to understand why so many cities are essentially sitting ducks in the cyberwar; they generally have far fewer resources to devote to protecting their data and information systems. While they have deep enough pockets to be worthwhile targets for hackers, they lack either the will or the sophistication (or both) to put adequate preventative measures in place.
In this week’s episode of CYBER24, our expert panel discusses what happened in Texas, why a coordinate attack is particularly alarming and what your organization should do to both make the most of the resources it can devote to cybersecurity and to prevent getting caught in a similar situation.
This week’s panel:
Anthony Booyse – Sophos
Matt Sorensen – Secuvant
Articles reference in this week’s episode:
Forbes: Texas Cyber Attack Has Taken 23 Government Agencies Offline – Forbes
https://apple.news/Aw3mnBWa9RdiKIyzMZUDR7Q
New York Times: Ransomware Attack Hits 22 Texas Towns, Authorities Say
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/20/us/texas-ransomware.html
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