Maryland county disrupted by Thanksgiving cyberattack

Some government systems in Maryland's Washington County have been disrupted by a cyberattack on Thanksgiving, with numerous services and websites yet to be restored, Government Technology reports. While Washington County would not be able to accept and process taxes, water and sewer service payments, and permits due to the cyber incident, phone services and 911 have not been impacted by the attack, according to the county. "At this time, the disruption is affecting capabilities at the Emergency Communications Center (911) but does not prevent citizens from being able to report an emergency situation... all critical public safety services are operational," said county officials, who added that an investigation into the source and impact of the disruption is ongoing. Holidays have been increasingly leveraged by threat actors to launch cyberattacks as targets are more likely to be vulnerable to intrusions during such events, with the FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency noting that holidays and weekends have seen the deployment of significant ransomware attacks, just like the Kaseya ransomware attack during last year's July 4th weekend.