Digital Forensics Dispatch

Connecticut County Faces Double Whammy, Ransomware and PII Leak   

March 8, 2022

According to Brian Neben at the Lexington Clipper-Herald, Connecticut’s Dawson County cyber troubles all started back in the fall of 2021.

In late September, the county became aware of a ransomware attack that had compromised a “large amount of data.” Upon discovering the issue an investigation was launched, counsel with experience with cybercrime was brought in for assistance and a private digital forensics firm was retained to aid in the investigation.

Attacks against local governments have become more common in recent years unfortunately. However, if there is a bright spot to be found in this fact it is that there is somewhat of an established playbook for government entities to follow. It appears that Dawson County was able follow this path and work with their attorneys and digital forensic firm to contain the ransomware and get critical services like 911 and essential administrative servers back online.

As the investigation progressed, it became clear that before initiating the encryption stage of the attack the bad actors first stole county data. That data has subsequently made it onto the dark web. After reviewing the posted data, the county concluded some social security and driver license numbers had been compromised. In a press release, the county claimed to have notified affected parties and offered free credit monitoring to anyone whose SSN or license number was believed to have been leaked.

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