📚 City of Knoxville Shuts Down Network After Ransomware Attack

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bleeping Computer: The City of Knoxville, Tennessee, was forced to shut down its entire computer network following a ransomware attack that took place overnight and targeted the city's offices. Knoxville has a population of over 180,000, it's Tennessee's third-largest city after Nashville and Memphis, and it's also part of the Knoxville Metropolitan Statistical Area, with a reported population of almost 870,000 in 2015. Computers on Knoxville's network were encrypted overnight, with the attack being noticed by employees of the city's fire department around 4:30 AM, June 11, according to Chief Operations Officer David Brace. While the City of Knoxville official website was still down at the time this article was published, Knox County government computer operations have not been affected in the attack. [...] "No credit card information is stored by the City, so individuals who have made any online reservations of City facilities are not believed to be at risk," Knoxville spokesman Eric Vreeland told WBIR. The city reported the ransomware attack o the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and is currently working with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation as part of an ongoing incident investigation. At the moment, the ransomware group responsible for this attack is still unknown.

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