County online services partially restored
EL CENTRO — Imperial County says its website has been partially restored and is expected to be fully operational in the coming days.
The announcement came Sunday in the aftermath of a ransomware attack on April 13 that seized some of the county’s servers, rendering them inaccessible. Among the known results were that the county’s website and email services were disabled. However, the county said investigators have found no evidence that personnel data have been compromised.
The county said in a release that it has worked with cybersecurity experts; local, state and federal law enforcement agencies; and information security experts with knowledge and experience of similar activities.
“We can at this point confirm that the system has been quarantined, multiple safety features have been upgraded, and data is being reviewed by multiple security firms and law enforcement agencies to determine the extent of what occurred,” the release said.
“We will continue to diligently monitor our system.”
The county systems were infected with a variant of a ransomware program called Ryuk.
Ransomware is a type of malicious software, or malware, that essentially holds a system and its data “hostage” until a ransom is paid. The usual currency of choice in the ransom demands is bitcoin.
Through its investigation, the county determined a hacker gained access to its systems and deployed the Ryuk ransomware on its network.
In a letter to employees, Imperial County Executive Officer Tony Rouhotas explained, “I cannot stress enough that the efforts put forth by the County and participating agencies had to be strategically coordinated to prevent any loss of information and increased intrusion into the system.”
He continued, “Our priority is to protect the County overall, especially, the employees and the citizens.”
District 4 Supervisor and Chairman of the Board, Ryan E. Kelley stated, “I appreciate my fellow Supervisors’ united position to stand against this malicious attack on our system. I would also like to thank the County employees for their dedication and all outside professionals that came together to assist us through this incident.”
Departments will continue working through temporary email addresses until email service is restored. For a complete list of departmental contact phone numbers, visit www.co.imperial.ca.us or contact the County Executive Office at (442) 265-1001.