Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz activated cyber protection assets from the Minnesota National Guard Tuesday as the city of St. Paul announced that it was the victim of a “sophisticated” cyberattack.
Walz said the “magnitude and complexity” of the attack have exceeded the city’s response capacity.
“We are committed to working alongside the City of Saint Paul to restore cybersecurity as quickly as possible,” Walz said in a press release. “The Minnesota National Guard’s cyber forces will collaborate with city, state, and federal officials to resolve the situation and mitigate lasting impacts. Above all, we are committed to protecting the safety and security of the people of Saint Paul.”
Mayor Melvin Carter said the city’s cybersecurity systems detected suspicious activity on the city’s network in the early hours of July 25.
“We now know this was not a system glitch or technical error. This was a deliberate, coordinated digital attack carried out by a sophisticated external actor intentionally and criminally targeting our city’s information infrastructure,” Carter said during a press conference Tuesday.
The mayor has activated the city’s emergency operations center to coordinate a response and issued a local declaration of emergency.
“Yesterday, we initiated a full shutdown of our information systems as a defensive measure to contain the threat. The citywide service outages we’ve experienced … are all the result of intentional, proactive actions taken to isolate and secure our systems,” he said.
The investigation remains ongoing to determine what systems were attacked and if any data was stolen.
Carter said the city can’t share specific details about the investigation at this time because of the “ongoing and dynamic threat”
“We are the victims of a serious crime,” said St. Paul Technology and Communications Director Jaime Wascalus.
911 remains fully operational.
This is a developing story.
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Author: Anthony Gockowski
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