Dallas city officials announced this week that nearly all of the systems affected by last month's ransomware attack have been restored. This includes online payments, local court scheduling, and several features related to public safety.
This update comes five weeks after the Dallas ransomware attack. The ransomware initially spread across the city, affecting police and fire departments that lacked computer-aided dispatch systems and required 911 operators to manually transcribe and relay calls for help. .
Officials said the CAD system came back online in mid-May. Since then, several other systems have been reinstated, including a service to schedule appointments with the city's animal shelter. And last week marked a major milestone when Dallas Municipal Court reopened for the first time in nearly a month and upgraded its case processing system.
“The painstaking work involved a comprehensive review of each system and each device to ensure they were free of malware, the installation and implementation of additional security components and protocols, and the maintenance of servers and devices as needed. This includes rebuilding, rebuilding, and restoring data from backups, Dallas Chief Information Officer Bill Zielinski told the Dallas City Council on Monday, according to KDFW-TV, the Fox affiliate in the Texas city of 1.3 million people. Told.
A ransomware organization known as Royal claimed credit for the Dallas attack, which was detected on May 3. This group is known as a spin-off of the infamous Conti operation, which has been one of the most active ransomware stocks since 2020. On May 19, Royal Group blogged that if the ransom was not paid, it would release data stolen from Dallas, including “large amounts of employee personal information (phones, addresses, credit cards, SSNs, passports).” Threatened me. Nothing has been leaked. Zielinski declined to tell the Dallas City Council whether there was any interaction between city officials or investigators and the Royal Group.
Dallas courthouses, utility bill payments and water meter readings have resumed, but 10% of the damage remains and many city agencies, including police, fire and animal shelters, are still operating some functions manually. using the workaround. The Dallas Public Library continues to be particularly hard hit. The system's online catalog and computer terminals in most branches remain offline, and materials can still be checked out but not returned.
Zielinski told the Dallas City Council on Monday that libraries are on this week's agenda.
The latest statement posted on Dallas' main website indicates that a citywide reset on cybersecurity is also underway.
“We are further strengthening our security posture, including implementing additional cybersecurity software, rolling out a system-wide reset across all user accounts, expediting the implementation of additional controls, and completely rebuilding affected systems. “We continue to work with cybersecurity experts on additional steps to create a new secure environment,” the statement said.
