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Jackson County, Missouri, confirms ransomware attack after declaring a state of emergency on Tuesday.
The FBI, federal Department of Homeland Security, Missouri Highway Patrol, and the county sheriff’s office are part of the ongoing investigation.
We are currently in the early stages of our diagnostic procedures, working closely with our cybersecurity partners to thoroughly explore all possibilities and identify the root cause of the situation. While the investigation considers ransomware as a potential cause, comprehensive analyses are underway to confirm the exact nature of the disruption.
Source – Jackson County’s press release
The ransomware attack’s impact on April 2 elections
The authorities say the ransomware attack impacted several systems, including tax payments and online property, marriage license, and inmate searches. They also announced closing the Assessment, Collection, and Recorder of Deeds offices indefinitely.
The attack happened on April 2nd, the same day as the special election. However, the system outage didn’t affect the Kansas City Board of Elections and Jackson County Board of Elections.
Until now, researchers haven’t found any evidence of hackers succeeding in compromising any data, but the investigation is still at the beginning.
Local citizens expressed disbelief and concern regarding the integrity of their data. Comments on social media show a lack of trust in the authorities’ capability to protect their sensitive information.
Source – Jackson County Missouri official Facebook page
county has all of our personal information including social security numbers, if they were able to breach the domain to control applications I’m guessing same admin account could access databases with that personal data too
Source – Reddit, r/kansascity
Hackers recently targeted other public services in Missouri with ransomware.
Liberty Hospital suffered a ransomware attack in December 2023 and had to transfer patients to other hospitals. Then the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA) was hit in January.
In February this year FBI’s cybersecurity specialists warned the nation’s state election administrators hackers will be increasingly active due to presidential elections in November.
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