The Prince Edward Island’s government website was hit by a ransomware attack Monday but no personal data was breached, according to the Guardian.
The ransomware attack was confirmed by director of enterprise architecture services Scott Cudmore, who confirmed that an investigation to determine if any data was taken was carried out.
“There has been no breach of any user data,” he said.
Visitors to the website were hit with a message that said the site had been encrypted, and a clock on the page counted down until files were deleted. Attackers demanded payment by Bitcoin, although Cudmore said no ransom was paid and the site was back up by 4:30 p.m.
“Like most exploits the software that we were using had a particular vulnerability that was exploited by this hacker in order to modify the site,” he said. “We’re also ensuring that this particular exploit doesn’t happen again by basically applying a patch to that underlying software.”
Read the full story at The Guardian
