Minnesota has called in the national guard after the city of St Paul was slammed by what its mayor described as a “deliberate, coordinated, digital attack” carried out by sophisticated hackers.
Governor Tim Walz said in a statement that he was deploying the guard, which has a cyber protection component, because the attack had “exceeded the city’s response capacity”.
In a press conference Tuesday, St Paul mayor Melvin Carter said the city had “initiated a full shut down of our information systems as a defensive measure to contain the threat”, triggering wifi outages across city buildings, disruptions to city libraries, and suspension of network resources.
“While these disruptions are difficult, they are necessary steps to limit exposure, preserve system integrity, and protect sensitive information,” he said.
The city first noticed “suspicious activity” on its internal systems in the early morning of 25 July, according to a press release from the St Paul mayor’s office. St Paul leaders ultimately decided to restrict access to the system that was targeted and then shut down the full network on Tuesday. Emergency services were not compromised, Carter said.
Carter said the city had hired two firms to help handle the cleanup operation and was working with the FBI. He did not identify the firms.
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The precise nature of the attack has not been publicly disclosed. Crippling hacks that knock out city services are a hallmark of ransomware incidents, in which hackers deploy data-scrambling software to paralyze victim networks until a ransom payment is made.
“Working closely with state leaders and private cybersecurity experts, our teams quickly moved to investigate, assess, and contain the situation,” Carter said in prepared remarks.
Carter said that the investigation is ongoing and that the city is still working to determine what data was accessed and stolen. In the meantime, he urged city employees to “take precautionary steps to safeguard their digital security, in both their professional and personal lives”.
Army brigadier general Simon Schaefer of the Minnesota national guard said in a statement that it is providing cyber protection support at the request of the city.
An FBI spokesperson told Reuters that the agency was aware of the situation and in contact with city officials. “We are working with partners and lending our investigative expertise,” the spokesperson said.
