Threat Management, Malware, Ransomware, Threat Management

U.S. Virgin Islands hit with ransomware and BEC attack

The U.S. Virgin Islands Police department was hit with a ransomware attack in April that targeted servers housing internal affairs records and citizen complaints while the territory’s water department was separately hit with a business email compromise (BEC).

“A lot of our files got corrupted, so we did notify the FBI and we are working with them to try to unencrypt the files that we can,” Police Commissioner Jason Marsh said Tuesday, according to GovTech.

Marsh said his department did not pay the ransom and is instead working with the federal agency to decrypt the data. 

The department acknowledged the attack in court documents related to an ongoing federal consent decree designed to ensure that officers do not use excessive force.

The territory’s Water and Power Authority was also hit in an unrelated attack for $2.3 million as the result of a BEC scam, a top executive at the department told a Senate committee, according to the St. Thomas Source

The water and power department has since started training staff on how to spot suspicious emails.

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