East Coast Water Utility Company Ransomware Attack Demanding Bitcoin

Important East Coast Water Utility Company Attacked By Ransomware

The recent Hurricane Florence has caused a lot of damage to the East Coast of the United States and some criminals decided to attack this region soon after as it appears that a local water utility company has been targeted by a major ransomware attack recently.

While the region was cleaning up after the hurricane, some criminals enjoyed their chance to cause more problems and exploit the weaknesses of the region with a ransomware attack. One of the weaknesses was found on the Onslow Water and Sewer Authority system, which was targeted by the cyber attack.

The attack is very troublesome because the Onslow Water and Sewer Authority is responsible for providing water to the victims of the Hurricane Florence, so this sophisticated attack can have the effect of compromising vital services provided by the company.

At the moment, the systems are severely crippled but no customer data has been compromised so far. However, it was already announced that this will have some sort of effect on how the authority will run its daily activities in the coming weeks.

The perpetrators of the attack have only once contacted the company so far via email and explained that they want a Bitcoin payment to restore the functions of the system. However, the company did not affirm how much money the criminals did want.

The Malware Spread Quickly

First, the company was attacked by a virus called Emotet, which is a form of malware that can cause trouble if untouched. It is not generally used for a full-fledged ransomware attack, though, which has surprised the people who work at the company the most at this time.

After the initial contamination, the situation got a lot worse and there are risks for the operations of the company if the ransomware is not paid or disrupted.

At the moment, nobody knows what will happen or how the victims of the hurricane can be affected. Our hope remains with the company to take swift action to solve this issues and with the law enforcement to arrest the people responsible for the attack at such an unfortunate hour.