About one dozen Connecticut government agencies were hit late last week with what one published report said was a WannaCry ransomworm attack that has knocked about 160 computers offline.
NECN.com is reporting that the attack began late Friday afternoon and eventually impacted 12 separate agencies. NECN learned the attack involved WannaCry when it became privy to a state email discussing the attack. The agencies involved in the attack were not named.
The news site is reporting that Connecticut officials do not believe the malware will not negatively impact any state-delivered services.
WannaCry makes use of the EternalBlue and DoublePulsar vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows that were discovered by the National Security Agency and then stolen and then made public by the hacking group The Shadow Brokers. The flaws were patched by Microsoft so now only computers that were not updated are vulnerable. The original WannaCry attacks took place in May 2017.
The fact that companies and organizations are still being susceptible to WannaCray should come as no surprise Steven Malone, Mimecast's director of security product management told SC Media.
“Although we've likely hit the peak of the initial infections, the repercussions of WannaCry will be with us for the foreseeable future. As less sophisticated attackers take the original malware code and morph it, waves of variants will continue to plague the organizations who are still lagging behind in locking down their systems,” he said.
Connecticut's government joins a long list of municipalities that have been victimized by ransomware attacks over the last few months, including Newark, N.J., Sarasota, Fla., Englewood, Colo., and Belle Fourche, S.D.
The Connecticut Department of Communications has not yet returned an SC Media request for additional information.
