The city of Oakland was recently the victim of a ransomware attack that affected multiple city departments and led the city to declare a local state of emergency due to the ongoing impact of network outages resulting from the attack. The attack did not affect local emergency services such as 911.
A ransomware attack occurs when someone encrypts files and demands ransom to decrypt them. The encryption makes the files and the systems that rely on them unusable, according to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
In light of this recent event, employees should be resilient in their efforts to ensure that the City and County of San Francisco stays cybersecure.
What Everyone Can Do
- Complete the mandatory cybersecurity training and get a refresher on the essentials.
- Guard your passwords and usernames like your bank credentials. One compromised account could be the keys to the kingdom for a hacker.
- Some of us work with or manage sensitive data — think smart and protect it like we would our family or loved ones!