‘Cyberattack’ on City of Woodstock being investigated

guest · Sep 24, 2019

‘Cyberattack’ on City of Woodstock being investigated
September 23, 2019
https://globalnews.ca/news/5941624/cyberattack-woodstock/

A virus has shut down the City of Woodstock’s computer systems in what the city is calling a possible cyberattack.

Chief Administrative Officer David Creery said a virus popped up on Saturday and is preventing the city from accessing their emails and data.

“Recovery is underway, servers are being restored. We are hopeful we could begin a very controlled entry by mid-week to re-deploy the digital resources.”
“The breach certainly has the appearance of a ransomware attack but we can confirm we have not had a ransom demand to date,” Creery said.

A similar incident happened to City of Stratford a few months back when the city had to pay $75,000 to unlock their data.
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guest · Oct 12, 2019

Woodstock nearly recovered from cyber attack
October 11, 2019
https://www.woodstocksentinelreview...ock-restores-functions-following-cyber-attack

The City of Woodstock has regained some of its email services, servers and databases – without paying a cyber ransom – following a paralyzing attack that afflicted the city’s computers for more than three weeks.

But it’s not without a catch: Creery said, at this time, staff email is only accessible via cellphones, and that not all staff have gone through the process of re-authenticating and resetting email passwords. So while email function has returned, not all staff have access to their accounts just yet.
Creery said only a handful of computers have been added to the city’s new “trusted network” and, so while systems are functioning, it’s only from a few computers for now.

Because the criminal investigation is ongoing, Creery declined to comment on any causes or origin of the attack.
The city has not paid a ransom, nor have they received an explicit demand. Creery said the city simply received a note with an email address, but did not reach out to the attackers, nor has Woodstock or its third-party experts been contacted.
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guest · Dec 11, 2019

Cyberattack costs Woodstock $667K
The city decided not to engage with the hacker, no ransom handed over
December 10, 2019
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/cyber-attack-woodstock-cost-1.5391680

According to staff report, the municipality spent more than $560,000 on a cybersecurity company, Deloitte, which helped them contain, investigate, and recovery from the breach.
Chief administrative officer David Creery said they never paid a ransom.

Creery said the municipality had already backed up all the data that became encrypted and inaccessible, and decided early on not to engage with the hacker.

"We have a very diligent IT team that has a ritual of backing up all our systems. So we didn't feel like we should be paying for something we already had," he said.
Creery said the attack was largely resolved within two months.

A full breakdown expenses related to the attack was on the agenda at Tuesday's city hall meeting. It says the city also spent nearly $55,000 on overtime compensation for staff and $31,000 on firewall and network support.
"The bigger the network, the more complex, the more connections you have, the more cost it is to rebuild."
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