A day after announcing that Dallas County systems experienced a cybersecurity attack earlier this month, county officials said they prevented data files from being exfiltrated or encrypted.
After detecting the Oct. 19 breach, officials immediately retained cybersecurity professionals to enhance security efforts to reduce the likelihood of a similar attack happening again, according to an Oct. 31 news release. The incident has been “effectively contained” due to safety measures, including:
- Deploying an “endpoint detection and response” tool across servers connected to the county network
- Forcing all users to change their passwords to access county systems
- Requiring multifactor authentication to access the county network remotely
- Blocking traffic to “malicious” IP addresses
Dallas County systems experienced a cybersecurity attack that has since been contained, County Judge Clay Jenkins said in a statement Oct. 30.
What you need to know
The breach, which county officials became aware of Oct. 19, is currently being investigated, Jenkins said. He added that the county hired a cybersecurity firm to conduct a “comprehensive forensic investigation.”
Jenkins did not share who or how many individuals could be impacted by the attack. As of Oct. 30, it is unclear who led the attack.
Quote of note
“As the investigation is still ongoing, we do not want to make premature assumptions about the extent of impact or other details, which may evolve as the forensic investigation advances,” Jenkins said in the statement. “The county will provide updates as soon as more information becomes available.”
Related highlights
The cyberattack comes five months after the city of Dallas suffered a ransomware attack that compromised several servers and impacted city services.
City staff said in September that nearly 30,000 current and former city employees, plus residents not employed by the city, had sensitive information leaked in the breach. The revelation came after months of city officials saying no sensitive information had been leaked.
