The Town of Midland, located in Ontario, Canada is reported to have been hit by a ransomware attack. According to a press release issued by the town officials the incident is said to have taken place on early hours of Saturday i.e. Sept 1st, 2018 when hackers succeeded in accessing the network to infect the database with ransomware.
Midland town officials say that they have received a ransom demand for decrypting the database but did not mention the amount which has to be shelled out to hackers. The staff was quick enough to isolate the infected the systems from the network to prevent further damage.
And as a result of the attack, services such as fire, water, and waste-management have been impacted.
Gord McKay, the Mayor of Midland confirmed the incident and added that the IT team of the county was working in tandem with cybersecurity experts in order to investigate the incident to the core.
McKay added that the cyber incident has been reported to the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario.
John Skorobohacz, the Chief Administrative Officer of Midland said that the town was in the process of making several improvements to the IT security at the time of the attack.
An update on the status of the ransomware incident will be provided after 48 hours via the website midland dot ca. Those who are concerned about the cyber attack can contact the customer support team of the website.
Note- On September 10th, 2018 an update was released to the media by the town of Midland officials. And it says that the authorities have planned to pay the ransom to the hackers in Bitcoins, instead of investing on rebuilding the servers and data. Since the town’s IT assets are covered under a cyber insurance policy, it’s said that there will be ‘Zero’ net fiscal impact on the town’s budget for this financial year.
