Washington County in the United States has fallen victim to a relentless cyber attack that commenced on Friday and continues to pose a threat. Tad Sours, the county’s communications director, revealed that over 14,000 attempts to log into the county’s servers were detected on the first day, escalating to more than 17,000 attempts on the second day and exceeding 33,000 on the third day.
Despite these efforts, the attackers have not relented, with the assault still ongoing. Fortunately, the attempts to access the servers, which include public-facing systems like email and GIS mapping, have been successfully blocked. County Assessor Bobby Hill reassured the public that, despite the attack, there has been no interruption in public access to essential services. The cyber attack is characterized as a “dictionary attack,” a method that systematically tries every word in a dictionary as a password to gain unauthorized access to password-protected systems.
This technique exploits the common practice of using easily guessable passwords, such as ordinary words. The Washington County Sheriff’s Office servers, except for email, have remained unaffected by the attack. Officials described the situation as akin to a “dictionary attack,” where the attackers systematically attempt to enter every word in a dictionary as a password to gain unauthorized access. This type of attack capitalizes on the tendency of users to choose common words as passwords.
The Washington County Sheriff’s Office servers, except for email, were reportedly unaffected by the cyber assault. Benton County Judge Barry Moehring, while stating he was not notified of any specific attempts to access Benton County’s systems, emphasized that vigilance against such attacks is standard procedure, as they face attempted breaches daily.
