Michigan Public Utility Shut Down By Ransomware Virus Attack

The Lansing Board of Water & Light in Michigan was hit by Ransomware. Although, only corporate network suffered from no interruption in the water or energy supplies. The staff was left to lock out their computers after the attack took place.

The attack took place when an employee opened an email attachment containing malicious code within it. This, in turn, spread Ransomware in the company’s network and started encrypting files on the computers on the network.

In order to prevent the Ransomware from spreading, BWL employees shut down their systems, even those used for accounting, email, and phone communications used for customer assistance and inquiries.

A post was released on Twitter from BWL which said that customer payment information is intact since credit card details are handled by the third party. Further, customers can easily make online payments. Customer services were restored later, however, it will take a week to return to normal state for other systems.

The incident is currently being investigated by BWL’s incident response team, FBI, and state police. The report revealed that the network segmentation made it difficult for Ransomware to shut down operations.  The separation between business systems and operation systems saved from the electricity and water loss. Had it been not separated, it would have resulted in the loss of service to thousands of hundreds of users.

The present scenario created due to the Ransomware attack is merely a trailer; data- encrypting malware to lock files and systems. Recent Ransomware attacks on various industries revealed newer variants of Ransomware which are difficult to detect. These variants can be handled only when preventive measures are taken in advance.

How to Secure your computer from Ransomware?

Use reputable anti-virus suite to fight against Ransomware and backup all your data on a timely basis.  Better late than never!

Advanced System Protector by Systweak can protect users and businesses from this Ransomware. It has a powerful engine to scan and remove such kind of threats and infections. Systweak offers security solutions so that users do not end up losing their important information. Another way to fight against Ransomware is to create the backup of all your data. Use Right Backup Anywhere to backup all your data on Cloud safely. Users can restore data from cloud anywhere, anytime.

Upgrade the system utilities to enhance the security of your system. Stay Safe!