Sammamish, a city in Washington, United States has declared an emergency as soon as the city’s interim manager was informed that the digital assets of the Council were targeted by a ransomware attack.
In a statement released a few hours ago, City Manager Larry Patterson confirmed the news and added that a third party security expert has been hired to free the database from the data encrypting malware.
Sammamish Mayor Christie Malchow said that Patterson has been authorized to hire the expert without the need of the city council’s approval which might go beyond the usual $50K budget.
Highly placed sources say that the attack was identified on Wednesday and the intrusion could have happened in the last weekend. The ransomware has blocked the access to sensitive files meant for internal communication and city spokeswoman Sharon Gavin said that computers at the city hall were isolated from the network in order to prevent further spread of the malware.
A building permit portal and a map services website have also been taken down as a precautionary measure and so if the residents need those services, then they have to visit the city hall manually till the issue gets resolved.
Note– Sammamish is a city in King County, located in Washington and has a population of 64,548- as per the 2017 census. Geographically stating it is a plateau spread in an 18.50 square miles span out of which most of it is land and some portion of it is water.
