Pennsylvania Attorney General Confirms Ransomware Behind Weeks-Long Outage

The Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General has confirmed that ransomware was behind a three-weeks-long outage impacting operations at offices across the Commonwealth.

The incident was initially disclosed on August 11, via social media posts, as the office’s entire network was down, including its website, email, and main phone line. By August 14, access to the website had been restored in some capacity.

On August 18, Attorney General Dave Sunday announced that employees were gradually being provided with access to their email accounts. Phone lines remained down for another week.

The office’s divisions and respective sections have been operating throughout the outage, albeit using alternate channels and methods.

On August 29, Attorney General Sunday confirmed that file-encrypting ransomware was used in the attack, but did not provide information on the group responsible for it, citing the ongoing investigation.

“The interruption was caused by an outsider encrypting files in an ...