A Ransomware attack was launched on The Pennsylvania Senate Democratic Caucus website locking the computer network of more than 16 Democratic Senators and their respective staff members. Our sources respond that the government organization discovered about the attack on Friday and FBI is working in coordination with Microsoft officials to resolve the issue.
Note- Ransomware is a kind of malicious software which locks down the database on a computer and offers to unlock it only when a specific ransom is paid.
Presently, the Democratic Senator’s website when viewed is displaying the message as “error establishing a database connection”.
The Senate was working on Friday last week, but the officials couldn’t access data or use the network.
After confirming some details from FBI, CNN reported that the attack could have been a conspiracy driven by a foreign actor against a state party. Authorities from FBI’s Philadelphia office are investigating the cyber attack. But they were asked to remain tight-lipped on this whole issue.
As Republican Senators of Pennsylvania have their own network their database remained isolated from the cyber attack. And as per our Cybersecurity Insiders sources, the State Governors computer network is separate and so remained unaffected.
The officials from FBI have hinted that they are not going to bow down to the wish list of the hackers. Means, they are not in a mood to pay the ransom. For this reason, a top technical personality from Microsoft was called in for help.
From the past couple of years, media reports are emerging on a regular note that local agencies, police departments, transit systems, hotels, universities, hospitals and government offices are extremely prone to hacks.
And the latest hack seems to be exactly reflecting their words.
