Cyber Attack on City of LeClaire, IA

According to sources, City of LeClaire (a Government organization in Iowa) was hit with a cyber attack. It was first reported on 2021-09-07.

City of LeClaire paid $222,373 to email scammers posing as vendors

“• “In total, $222,373 in LeClaire city funds were directed to three fraudulent accounts through “cleverly disguised and modified emails that resembled legitimate emails from legitimate vendors,” interim City Administrator Ed Choate wrote in an email to the Quad-City Times.” • “LeClaire has recovered about $120,618, Choate said, by freezing the accounts. Choate said the city is continuing to work with the FBI, the city's bank, and its insurance carrier to recover and/or reach a settlement for the remaining about $102,000.” • “In two of the three situations, Choate said, the city discovered the cyber attack because the actual vendors contacted the city to alert officials that they hadn’t received payment. In the third case, the city clerk discovered the fraud and contacted the vendor.” • “The city installed multi-factor authentication and other security software applications, Choate said, to prevent email compromises in the future. And documents and training for ACH transactions, an automatic payment system, were implemented by the city with help from their financial institution and the Iowa Department of Management.” “