Maze Ransomware, Pensacola Cyber Attack, and Municipal Responsibility

As the story concerning the ransomware attack against Pensacola City agencies continues to evolve we need to ask why municipalities continue to suffer attacks.

I hope in coming weeks we will get more details about who was targeted, how the ransomware was delivered, an what systems either failed or weren’t present. However, in light of events in Atlanta, Texas and other large cities I have to ask, what steps are cities taking to prevent a breach.

We‘re living in a time where people’s confidence in government is at an all time low. Lack of trust at the federal and state level could be tempered by at least confidence in your local government. When you think about how government really affects you, local ones have great impact. So when your local government loses your data, or can’t deliver service you’re taxed for, it’s going to affect trust. I understand government budgets are always strapped, but very often these types of attacks take advantage of vulnerabilities that have low costs to address. I’d like to see if states are helping local governments put together a playbook of low cost low effort security controls they can implement to prevent such an attack.

#ransomware