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Media contact: Carolyn Marinan, Communications, 612-348-5969
Hennepin County
responding to cyberattack
Attackers gained unlawful access to county
email system
Hennepin County is responding to an ongoing
cyberattack targeting employee email.
The sophisticated email cyberattack
accessed employee email accounts by using credentials obtained through phishing
emails that began arriving at the end of June. The attackers then sent malicious
emails from those Hennepin County accounts using legitimate signature blocks.
The email accounts of approximately 20
county employees out of 9,300 total staff were compromised by the attackers.
Hennepin County is evaluating the content of those compromised email accounts
and assessing the extent to which private data may have been accessed. Some
emails may contain private data about individuals to whom the county provides
services.
“Like many organizations, we’re
increasingly facing threats of phishing attacks,” said Jerome Driessen, the
county’s chief information officer. “We’ve been aggressively responding to and
monitoring activity since the first indication, and increased our efforts to
protect staff this week.”
The county has also notified vendors
with which it maintains a business relationship and referred the matter to the
FBI for investigation.
Hennepin County will complete its
investigation of this incident and prepare a report pursuant to state law. Upon
completion of the report, members of the public may view a copy of it on www.hennepin.us.
Instructions for requesting delivery of the report by mail or email will also
be posted on the website.
“Hennepin County takes its responsibility to
protect resident data very seriously,” Driessen said. “We continue ongoing employee training and education. We
also continuously enhance IT security
measures to prevent increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks, and we hope this
announcement can further dialogue about the increasing threats to all
organizations’ cybersecurity.”
Look for more news on the Hennepin County website at hennepin.us/news.
Discover how we're making a difference in our communities at hennepin.us/stories.
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