City of Oakland issued a local state of emergency after recent ransomware attack

The City of Oakland has declared a local state of emergency due to the effect of the ransomware attack that hit the city on February 8, 2023.

The City of Oakland disclosed last week a ransomware attack, the security breach began on February 8, 2023. In an abundance of caution, the City of Oakland has taken impacted systems offline, while they work to secure the impacted infrastructure.

The Information Technology Department notified local authorities and launched an investigation into the incident to determine the scope and severity of the issue.

The initial notice published by the City confirmed that its core functions (911, financial data, and fire and emergency resources) were not impacted, however, it warns the public of possible delays from the City due to the attack.

In an update provided by the City on February 14, 2023, it declared a local state of emergency due to the effect of the ransomware attack.

“Today, Interim City Administrator, G. Harold Duffey issued a local state of emergency due to the ongoing impacts of the network outages resulting from the ransomware attack that began on Wednesday, February 8. Oakland continues to experience a network outage that has left several non-emergency systems including phone lines within the City of Oakland impacted or offline.” reads the update published by the City.

The declaration allows the City to expedite the procurement of equipment and materials, and activate emergency workers when needed, while its experts work to restore its infrastructure and the service it provides.

At this time, the City has yet to reveal the ransomware family that targeted its infrastructure.

The IT Department is investigating the incident with the support of a leading forensics firm, it also hired other cybersecurity and technology firms to recovery operations. The investigation is still ongoing.

“This continues to be an ongoing investigation with multiple local, state, and federal agencies involved.” concludes the report.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, ransomware)

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.