Cyberattack Causes Outages in City of Pittsburg, Kansas

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A ransomware attack on the City of Pittsburg in Kansas has disrupted the local government’s phone, email, and online payment systems.

City staff discovered the attack on September 16, 2023, after the bad actors involved demanded a ransom payment to recover city servers.

The city was forced to perform critical tasks on paper until services were restored.

Recent Increase in Small Government Attacks

The incident exemplifies a recent trend noted by cybersecurity experts indicating a rapid rise in cyberattacks targeted against small governments and cities.

As reported on by Infosecurity Magazine, nearly half of all ransomware attacks target municipalities.

The International City/County Management Association (ICMA) lists five key reasons these organizations are targeted including:

  1. Large number of local governments
  2. Holders of sensitive information
  3. Inadequate cybersecurity
  4. Financial constraints
  5. Use of Internet of Things (IoT) technology

CISA CPG Guidelines

CISA recommends taking advantage of third-party validation options available at zero cost to organizations like yours to help identify cybersecurity gaps.

Trinsio offers four complimentary services including a Firewall Network Threat Assessment.

Based on actual traffic hitting your firewall over a 24-hour period, a Trinsio network threat assessment will confirm your firewall’s effectiveness by documenting all of the incoming and outgoing threats to your network based on more than 50 lists maintained by the cyber intelligence community.

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