St Helens Borough Council suffered a ransomware attack

St Helens Borough Council, a United Kingdom local authority, has released a public advisory that warns citizens about potential scams after it suffered a ransomware attack observed earlier this week.

The affected local authority revealed that it first spotted the malicious campaign last Monday, which prompted them to seek assistance from a third-party security firm.

 

St Helens Borough Council continued its operations despite the recent attack.

 

Based on reports, St Helens Borough Council has continued to provide services through its website, although it suffered disruption in some of its systems.

This entity has also explained that they have isolated some of their systems to mitigate further impact and to allow their security team to investigate the incident properly.

Additionally, the impacted agency has recommended that its residents be vigilant with received emails since potential threat actors could pose as St Helens’ representatives to execute phishing attacks.

Furthermore, the council revealed that these actors could impersonate their banks and inform them of a new direct debit. This detail suggests that the hackers could have reached the citizens’ details during the attack.

The St Helens advisory explained that threat actors could create a fake email that would include accurate information about the citizens to make their attacks more convincing. These cybercriminals use fake messages such as emails and SMS to lure their targets into clicking links that could harvest critical data, like bank details.

Furthermore, the council stated that they are working to resolve the incident but added that the campaign is complex and continues evolving.

Local governments in the United Kingdom and the United States have attracted numerous ransomware groups since they are the most vulnerable and profitable entities. Recovering from such a campaign could be costly for these entities since some of them could cost millions of dollars.

These incidents indicate that local authorities and government agencies should also employ potent cybersecurity solutions to prevent cyberattacks, such as ransomware. Lastly, leaders should consider adopting powerful cybersecurity products since these campaigns could damage organisations and lives.