Backup systems allowed Merrimack County to avoid paying a ransom to whoever caused the recent “cyber incident” that interfered with some services for many days, according to County Administrator Ross Cunningham.
Cunningham has released few details about the incident, which began the last week of August. He said it was caused by “a cyberattack involving ransomware.” Ransomware usually means hackers have removed or blocked access to important information and demand payment, often in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, before restoring it.
In response to queries from the Monitor, Ross stated that “the County did not need to pay a ransom. We maintain backups and we were able to safely restore.”
“The County continues to work diligently on this matter and to protect the integrity of the ongoing investigation, we are not at liberty to share additional information regarding specifics of the incident,” Ross wrote Thursday.
He said the county is not aware of any artificial intelligence or phishing that led to the incident.
Phishing entails getting people to provide access to a closed system, usually by fooling them into thinking that they are dealing with a legitimate source, such as their boss, another employee or a vendor. The use of artificial intelligence technologies that can create realistic audio or video files imitating real people has made phishing much easier to do.
Merrimack County is one of many governments, companies and private groups that have been disrupted when hackers or other bad actors, sometimes including foreign governments, interfere with online services either by phishing or by making use of weaknesses in software or equipment.
In Merrimack County’s case, the most obvious effect was at the Register of Deeds, which could not accept electronic submissions of material for a couple of weeks.
