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City finds malware in computer system

2 min read
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Officials reported an apparent hack of the city of Washington’s computer system to the FBI this week.

Councilman Joe Manning said the city’s also trying to hire consultants to determine exactly what happened after Washington employees arrived at work Monday to find malware in the computer system.

“We took (the affected hardware) off immediately and left them off so as not to spread (the malware) any further,” he said.

He added he and his colleagues “are still in the early stages of how to address this,” but “to my knowledge” no private or confidential information had been accessed, but couldn’t identify a purpose of the malware attack at this point.

“We’re in the initial stages of doing the investigation into the extent of it, how it happened,” he said.

He declined to name the consultants the city was hiring because the contracts hadn’t been finalized as of Tuesday.

“I can tell you there’s been no disruption of service” like the city police and fire departments, Manning said.

He said the many local governments face similar problems.

For example, the Baltimore Sun reported in late March that ransomware had forced the temporary shutdown of its home city’s 911 dispatch system. That article cited a similar hack that occurred the week before in Atlanta.

Earlier this month, the digital-security website CSO listed five different malware attacks on municipal and county governments across the county that had been reported over a period of less than two weeks in April.

“It’s something that used to be pretty rare for municipalities,” Manning said. “We’re seeing more and more of this.”

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