The massive ransomware computer attack that disrupted businesses and government agencies around the world has so far spared Pima County.
That’s according to a county response to a records request from the Star regarding the so-called WannaCry worm, which has infected several hundred thousand computers in 150 countries since late last week. Among the more high-profile victims was England’s National Health Service, which saw significant disruption.
Ransomware blocks users’ access to files and threatens to destroy them unless the attackers are paid, in this case in the digital currency, bitcoin.
“Our client anti-malware software blocks this malware and our servers have also been patched for WannaCry and the eternalblue exploit,” county IT director Jesse Rodriguez told the Star . Eternalblue is a computer vulnerability found in the operating system that was infected by WannaCry malware.
People are also reading…
While the attackers, whose identity is unknown, had no luck with the county, previous attacks have successfully infected county computers, though no ransoms were paid .
In February, a health department employee opened an email from an “external host,” which is against county policy. The ransomware locked 75,000 files, which were all “restored from backup.”
“We do backups multiple times a day, so we have an option of which backup to go back to,” Rodriguez said, adding later that there are over 20,000 attempted computer attacks on the county daily.
A similar incident occurred in Pima County Superior Court, which has its own IT system, in February 2016, and the affected files were also restored. The Star previously reported the attack temporarily disrupted some court work, though information about whether payments were made was not provided. On Tuesday, a court spokeswoman confirmed no ransom was paid.
Related story, Page A16.
