Security News > 2020 > March > Fresh virus misery for Illinois: Public health agency taken down by... web ransomware. Great timing, scumbags

As the world tackles the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, ransomware creeps have knocked offline a public health agency's website that served nearly a quarter of a million people in the US. The Champaign Urbana Public Health District in Illinois, covering 210,000 folks, including the state's biggest university, said today it has had to set up an alternate website as it deals with a ransomware infection that took down its primary site.

A spokesperson for the district also confirmed an earlier report from Mother Jones that the outage, which began Tuesday morning, was caused by a ransomware infection rather than a crush of traffic.

"CUPHD can confirm that our system was attacked by a ransomware virus [called] Netwalker," El Reg was told.

The horrible timing of the ransomware attack - right as people turn to state officials for advice and information on a biological virus outbreak - is likely a coincidence, as ransomware infections have for months been spreading on various local government networks.

Places as sparsely populated as Nunavut, Canada and as large as Baltimore, Maryland have had to deal with ransomware hijackings that shut down critical city services.

News URL

https://go.theregister.co.uk/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2020/03/12/ransomware_illinois_health/