[quite the year](/news/5-hacks-by-dallas-ransomware-attackers-16696367)for Dallas County IT.After many months of various tech troubles, it seems the county has yet another hacker hurdle to navigate.If the ransomware group Play is to be believed, private Dallas County data will be made public on Nov.3 unless the group receives payment.According to reports, the hacker group made a post on Oct.
28 to the dark web claiming it had stolen an unspecified number of files and planned to release them unless an unspecified ransom was paid.
Dallas County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins said in a statement this week that the county became aware of a “cybersecurity incident” on Oct.
19.“We immediately took steps to contain the incident and engaged an external cybersecurity firm to conduct a comprehensive forensic investigation,” Lewis Jenkins said.“Our foremost priority is the safety and security of our employees, the residents, and the public we serve.” He said the county has put in place stringent security protocols to safeguard its systems and data and is collaborating with external cybersecurity specialists and law enforcement.Boyd Clewis, vice president of the Baxter Clewis Training Academy, which trains people in cybersecurity, has noticed the county’s recent problems.“It seems like the never-ending cycle of cyber issues with Dallas County,” Clewis said.
However, he added that these kinds of attacks are pretty typical for local government agencies, and he wouldn’t chalk it up to incompetence.“I don’t think it’s incompetence at all,” he said.“But what I have noticed is that specifically in spaces such as local government and what not, the resources are not allocated to protect the local government’s applications, security infrastructure, et cetera, until after a catastrophic event has happened.” Clewis doesn’t think this has to do with red tape or bureaucracy.It’s just hard for people to see the return on investment with something like cybersecurity, because when it works as it should, nothing seems to be happening.
“If I make an investment in something, I want to see a return on investment,” Clewis said.“But when it comes to cybersecurity, it’s one of those things where the return is your company not being in the news for something catastrophic happening.” Dallas has been in the news a lot over the last couple of years because of various IT and cybersecurity incidents.The latest attack comes on the heels of other cybersecurity and IT incidents that have rocked both the city of Dallas and Dallas County.In August 2021, a city of Dallas IT employee accidentally deleted [22 terabytes of police data](/news/dallas-police-lost-data-waited-months-to-tell-da-12200427).Months later, [600 hours of law enforcement surveillance footage](/news/amidst-federal-data-security-investigation-18-tb-of-dpd-surveillance-footage-leaks-online-12777947), mostly recorded by the Dallas Police Department, was leaked to the online activist group Distributed Denial of Secrets.In December 2021, a ransomware group attacked the Ultimate Kronos Group, a human resources company that provides timekeeping services, affecting [over 2,400 city of Dallas employees](/news/ransomware-attack-affects-2411-city-of-dallas-employees-13038485).Then, in November 2022, the website, servers and email for the [Dallas Central Appraisal District](/news/dallas-central-appraisal-district-systems-still-down-a-week-after-ransomware-attack-15269947), or DCAD, were all inaccessible for a period of time after another ransomware attack.This attack was pulled off by a [hacker group called Royal](/news/5-hacks-by-dallas-ransomware-attackers-16696367).
The group initially demanded $1 million for the DCAD data, but was paid only about $170,000 in crypto currency, according to WFAA.The same group, which is believed to be based in Russia, pulled off a [] “Our foremost priority is the safety and security of our employees, the residents, and the public we serve.” – Dallas County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkinstweet this [devastating attack against the city of Dallas](/news/hacked-dallas-ransomware-attack-disrupts-city-services-16516621)in May of this year, crippling multiple city services.The city is still recovering from that attack.Meanwhile, the county has been dealing with its own IT flubs that have nothing to do with hackers.
Beginning in the middle of May of this year, Dallas County employees were receiving [incomplete paychecks or sometimes no paychecks at all](/news/after-almost-2-months-many-dallas-county-employees-still-missing-pay-17010294).The issue was blamed on the rollout of an updated payroll system that affected sheriff’s deputies, correctional officers, expert witnesses and other positions in the county.
A month after the problems started, the U.S.Department of Labor launched an investigation into the issue.The former head of Dallas County’s IT department, Melissa Kraft, told The Dallas Morning News that she wanted to delay the payroll software rollout, citing potential risks with its implementation.Kraft warned county officials, including auditor Darryl Thomas, of the potential risks, but they pushed forward with the rollout.Both Kraft and Thomas would later resign.
The county is also still dealing with problems related to the rollout of a new court management software.A couple of weeks after the new software, called Odyssey, was implemented, prosecutors, public defenders and the county probation office all reported having [limited access to county criminal case files](/news/new-court-software-implementation-slows-down-justice-in-dallas-county-17085228).The problem, which was bringing the county’s criminal justice system to a near standstill, stemmed from the migration of files from the old system to the new one.The issue led to people [languishing in the county jail](/news/the-dallas-county-jail-is-nearing-capacity-17475523)for longer than they should have, a problem that persists today.As a result, the jail is seeing a higher number of inmates than usual and the cost to run the jail has increased, according to The Dallas Morning News.
The jail has reached about 94% capacity and costs $1 million more a month to run compared with last year, according to the News.We reached out to Lewis Jenkins’s office for an update on the county problems with paychecks as well as the Odyssey software, but we did not receive an official update on either issue before publication time.As for the latest hack, Lewis Jenkins said in a statement that the investigation is 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,” Lewis Jenkins said.“We value the trust and credibility we have established with our residents and partners and strive to maintain accuracy in the information we share.The county will provide updates as soon as more information becomes available.”.
