About 10,000, is the number of computers in municipal locked for the past three weeks. They are blocked since 7 may, the day the authorities of Baltimore have discovered that their city was the victim of a cyber attack. This is problematic because these computers contain information that is essential for the proper functioning of municipal services: email boxes of employees of the town hall, work files, data related to the surveillance cameras… This attack is also affecting the inhabitants of the city. They cannot pay their water bills or property taxes online because the service was dedicated is part of the platforms blocked. 1.500 real estate sales have also been suspended.
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in order To have access to this information and services, the city should pay a ransom of 13 bitcoins, more than $ 100,000 at the current price. Indeed, it has been attacked by a rançongiciel, malicious software is able to cheat the users by partially blocking their computer or smartphone. Named RobinHood (Robin hood), it relies on EternalBlue, a tool developed by the u.s. central intelligence agency NSA. The latter exploits a flaw of the operating systems Windows XP and Vista, allowing an external third party to execute remote commands on the target. It had been placed online in April 2017 by the group of hackers Shadow Brokers. Microsoft had released a patch to correct the flaw, but only for its operating systems more recent Windows 7 and later versions. The tool EternalBlue has subsequently been used for cyber attacks Wannacry and NotPetya, respectively in may and June 2017.
Gmail accounts temporarily disabled
to enable citizens To perform transactions, the city of Baltimore has put in place a manual system. City officials have also created a Gmail account in order to be able to continue to communicate. However, last week, these have been temporarily disabled by Google. The giant had indeed detected a mass creation of accounts from the same network, which is in general linked to fraudulent behavior. “We have restored access to Gmail accounts for the officials of the city of Baltimore. Our automated security systems have disabled the accounts because of the massive creation of Gmail accounts from the same network,” explained a spokesperson of Google.
