Vigo County government computers have been hit by a ransomware attack.
The Board of Commissioners cancelled its weekly staff and public meeting this morning because of the malicious computer attack.
Commissioner Judith Anderson said the attack occurred about 2:20 a.m. this morning in Vigo County Superior Court Division 4.
"Some of the courts system is on lock down, that is what we know," Anderson said.
Commissioner President Brad Anderson said the county "is trying to be careful" because many court documents -- such as juvenile cases -- are not public record.
He said the county is working with a third party computer security provider to investigate the extent of the attack.
Ransomware is a type of malicious software, or malware, designed to deny access to a computer system or data until a ransom is paid. Ransomware typically spreads through phishing emails or by a user unknowingly visiting an infected website.
Other county governments have recently been hit by ransomware attacks.
LaPorte County earlier this month paid $132,000 to hackers after a ransomware shut down part of the county's computer system, the Times of Northwest Indiana reported.
The Michigan City News Dispatch reported that the attack on LaPorte County occurred July 6. The attack was confined by the county’s IT department to less than 7 percent of the organization’s laptops, but the ransomware did hit two domain controllers, preventing servers from accessing network services.
In June, two cities in Florida paid to unlock data, according to CNBC. Riviera Beach paid $600,000 and Lake City almost $500,000 to get their data unlocked.
Earlier this month, a resolution on cybersecurity was adopted at the 87th annual U.S. Conference of Mayors saying its members will “stand united” against paying ransoms should their systems be hit by ransomware.
The organization, which represents over 1,400 mayors from U.S. cities with a population of at least 30,000, said at least 170 city, county or state government systems have been hit by ransomware since 2013.
The resolution says 22 attacks have occurred this year, including cites of Baltimore, Maryland, Albany, New York, as well as the Texas county of Fisher and the Michigan county of Genesee.
A news release from Vigo County commissioners said only the county was "attacked by a malware (virus) program that has adversely affected daily operations.
"That attack has resulted in some information stored on internal servers being locked down and not accessible.
"The Vigo County IT department is working with our information technology security contractor to control the issue.
"All Vigo County Government departments are open (during normal hours). There may be service interruption during the repair process."
Commissioner Brendan Kearns said the attack, though it came in through the courts system, is only affecting county servers and not the statewide court computer system known as Odyssey.
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