The City Hall of Porto Nacional, Brazil, was the target of a significant cyberattack this past week. The criminal action compromised the complete operation of the internal systems of the entire municipal administration. This concerted attack left many of the city’s different sectors without any internet access throughout the morning. The incident occurred between the night of Monday, the twenty-third, and the morning of Tuesday, the twenty-fourth of June. The city’s IT department worked quickly to understand the full scope and nature of the online digital intrusion.
According to the Secretariat of Information Technology, the cyberattack used a very common ransomware-type of virus.
This type of malware aims to encrypt data and then demand a large financial ransom for its release. The criminals also left a serious threat to disclose the city’s personal data that was on its servers. However, they were unable to copy or store any of the files, according to the municipality’s technical support team. The executive secretary of Information Technology, Garibaldi Neto, informed that the municipality has approximately 20 terabytes of files. The secretary also stated the transfer of this data would be unfeasible for criminals to do in the short term.
The systems affected by the virus were exclusively those of the city’s internal files and its geomapping data.
These specific systems do not contain any of the personal or sensitive data from servers or from taxpayers. The city’s administration has worked to reassure the public that their most important personal information remains secure. The executive secretary has assured the public that there was absolutely no leak from any of the taxpayers’ systems. This public assurance also extended to the city’s various important and sensitive electronic governmental process systems.
Thanks to a new system acquired by the municipality, the city’s data backup is made fresh every day. This critical daily backup is already being restored to its proper place by the information technology team. The full restoration process will take a while due to the very large size of all of the files. The Municipality’s Legal Attorney’s Office has informed that a formal complaint will be registered with the Civil Police. This legal action will allow the case to be thoroughly investigated and for those responsible to be identified.
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