Cyber attack on the City of Coppell disrupted operations, impacted server data

The city of Coppell in Texas has disclosed that it experienced a data security incident that forced City officials to temporarily take its systems offline.

 

In a data security incident notice posted on its website, the City said that in the early morning of October 23, it identified unauthorised access to its internal network. The City’s automated security systems responded immediately and helped to contain and mitigate the impact.

 

The City immediately launched an investigation, with assistance from external cyber security experts, to determine the nature and scope of the incident. Also, as a precautionary measure, “access to City servers has been temporarily shut down, limiting access to some systems and digital services.”

 

It is also working with state and federal law enforcement agencies and using their guidance to restore the affected network.

 

In a statement shared with the media, City Manager Mike Land said, “The City has extensive trainings, tools, and systems in place to help prevent these types of events from being successful, and these security measures helped to minimize the overall impact.

 

“Nonetheless, bad actors were able to disrupt our network environment, and we have reason to believe that some of the older data on one of our servers could have been impacted as a result. Our investigation into the full scope of data affected remains ongoing,” he added.

 

While the investigation is still in progress, City officials added that “the data stored on one particular server may have included partial, and potentially outdated, individual and vendor information.”

 

“As the City restores its network from backups, it will continue to learn more about the incident, its root cause, and who specifically may have been impacted,” City officials added.

 

On November 25, the RansomHub ransomware group claimed responsibility for the cyber attack on the city of Coppell and listed it as a victim on its data leak site. The group claims to be in possession of 442 GB of data stolen from the City and threatened to leak the same unless its ransom demands aren’t met.