The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department is still working to recover from a cyberattack involving malware, several weeks after it was first detected. Public information officer Mara Rodriguez confirmed that the Southern California department noticed a network disruption on April 7, and later confirmed it was malware. While Rodriguez did not confirm whether it was ransomware, local media reports indicate that the department shut down most of its systems to contain the incident, which is a common response to ransomware attacks.
The department has launched a forensics investigation to understand the impact of the incident. Despite these efforts, the agency is still facing challenges in recovering from the attack. According to a local news outlet, officers have been forced to use radios to conduct license plate checks and access suspect information. The department initially shut down email and internet services, as well as the computers used by officers in their vehicles.
ABC7 reported that the attack originated when an officer clicked on a malicious link. However, it remains unclear whether data was stolen during the attack, and no ransomware group has taken credit for the incident.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department is not the only law enforcement agency to experience a cyberattack. The Washington County Sheriff’s Office in Florida and a police department in New Jersey have both suffered from ransomware attacks in recent months. Other police departments across the United States have had to rely on pen and paper after cyberattacks compromised their systems. Ransomware groups have also targeted police departments in California, including in Modesto, Oakland, and San Francisco. Even the U.S. Marshals Service was affected by a ransomware attack that led to the exposure of sensitive data.
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