Cyber Attack on City of Lewiston Government Systems, MN

According to sources, City of Lewiston Government Systems (a Government organization in Minnesota) was hit with a cyber attack. It was first reported on 2021-09-22.

Lewiston cyber attack underscores threat

“• “In Lewiston’s case, Falcon said the attackers simply cracked the city’s security from the outside. “The entry point from the analysis that was conducted points to a brute force attack, meaning that the attackers identified an open port on the firewall and used a script to basically try a number of passwords,” • “Lewiston city leaders ultimately agreed to pay a $60,000 ransom — in the form of 1.5 Bitcoin — to the attackers. “The forensic team was the party in contact with what they termed the threat actor, and in the process of negotiating a ransom to be paid, ultimately that ransom was agreed to and was paid by the city,” Falcon said. The ransom was covered by insurance, so it did not cost the city directly, he added.” • “Lewiston’s ransom didn’t work. The attackers took the city’s money, then demanded another $120,000 to release the data. “We knew there was a chance of re-extortion. We had been warned of that by the team that we hired,” Falcon said.” • “The final outcome was that we were re-extorted and chose not to pay a second ransom and restored our systems with backups we were able to find available, but all of the other data on our system was lost,” “