State of emergency in New Orleans, a computer attack is the cause

On December 13, 2019, the city of New Orleans was hit by a ransomware-type computer attack.

Indeed, several public services linked to the operation of the city have been affected by this malware that has paralyzed them. While no ransom has been demanded so far, the state of emergency has been declared.

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As of 5:00 a.m. on Friday, December 13, it was detected several suspicious activities in the computer network related to the services public services in the city. The city's mayor, LaToya Cantrell, immediately declared the city's state of emergency alert as soon as the moment the cyber-attack was confirmed by experts. From the perspective to be able to counter the computer attack, several services in the city suspended by the security service. The 400,000 inhabitants were then deprived of computers, access to the Wi-Fi network and the server public services. Administrative staff had to automatically migrate to the traditional method of working, i.e. paper, pen and pencil.

Today, December 16, the situation seems not to have fully recovered, the mayor of the city on Twitter, had to make a clarification about the city hall's activities by announcing that it will always be open in a normal manner. He noted that a fairly to allow the public access to payment of sales taxes, parking spaces, and parking spaces. The number for non-services urgently needed for municipal structures were reminded of everyone, on 311, number that works properly. In addition, the authorities have announced that the emergency number, i.e. 911, did not also affect the attack as well as the city's video surveillance system in its entirety.

In addition, the majority of the town hall's services operate normally but at the end of the old one, i.e. without no computer. Only a few services such as the Court of Justice municipal government, which usually loads business yet on the neighborhood traffic, which will be closed.

At this stage, the city authorities have attempted to ensure that that no personal data relative or public employees of the town hall or other individuals was recovered by hackers Computer. And of course, the most surprising in history, the ransomware having been beautiful and well used by the latter, i.e. the cybercriminals who caused computer attack, no ransom demand was made until present. The director of the CITY's COMPUTER security department New Orleans, Collin Arnold announced that if life had to react in a way also effective in dealing with computer attack, it is thanks to many experiences as a result of disasters it has gone through, such as example of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. "If there is a positive aspect to being a city that has been hit by disasters, which has been massively destroyed in the past is that our security plans and activities reflect the fact that we can work with the Internet without the city's network. ».

The investigation continues, the Louisiana State Police was involved as well as the U.S. Federal Police. Now is the time to discover the hackers behind this attack and the real motivations that led them to act.

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