Oakland Authorities Declared a State of Emergency Due to a Ransomware Attack

Daniel ZimmermannFebruary 17, 2023

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The city of Oakland, California, declared a state of emergency due to a ransomware attack that hit the city’s IT systems on February 8, 2023.

The special regime, if necessary, will speed up the execution of orders, the purchase of materials and equipment, and will also help to activate emergency services if necessary, the authorities said.

Let me remind you that we also reported that the US authorities were talking about three ransomware attacks on water treatment plants, and also that Hackers Attacked the British Company South Staffordshire Water, but Mistakenly Demanded Money from Another One.

Let me remind you also that The expert told how he hacked into a nuclear power plant.

The city of Oakland reported last week that a hack was forcing them to shut down many of the city’s IT systems until the network was secured and the affected services were back online. At the same time, it was emphasized that the incident did not affect the work of the 911 dispatch service, and fire and emergency services are working as usual.

It is not known which group is behind this attack, as the city authorities do not disclose any details of the incident, and also do not say whether they received ransom messages or whether data was stolen from compromised systems.

Unfortunately, the authorities failed to quickly restore urban systems. This week, Acting Mayor Harold Duffey declared a state of emergency in Oakland “due to ongoing network outages following the ransomware attack.”

Oakland continues to experience network outages that affect or disable a number of non-critical systems, including phone lines.<span class="su-quote-cite">the city acknowledged.</span>

state of emergency in Oakland

Currently, third-party cybercriminalists (as well as federal and local government agencies) are involved in the investigation of the incident, and third-party IT specialists are helping the city to restore infrastructure and return to normal operations.

It is worth saying that ransomware attacks on the systems of small American cities have long been a rarity. For example, back in 2019, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards was also forced to introduce a state of emergency in the state. The reason for this was a series of coordinated ransomware attacks targeting school districts in North Louisiana. As a result of these incidents, the IT networks of three school districts were taken down and files were encrypted and inaccessible.

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