ransomware

Chief Appraiser Joe Don Bobbitt met with the Watauga City Council as the first stop on a tour addressing comments and concerns about the Tarrant Appraisal District.

More security improvements are coming to the Tarrant Appraisal District, and systems are mostly back online after a cyberattack took them out of commission, Chief Appraiser Joe Don Bobbitt announced during an April 22 board of directors meeting.

The hacking group Medusa has posted files it claims to have illegally obtained from the Tarrant Appraisal District network to the dark web, the appraisal district confirmed April 16.

The Tarrant Appraisal District found that less than 300 individuals had sensitive information impacted by a recent ransomware attack.

An unknown ransomware group is demanding $700,000 from the Tarrant Appraisal District, after a network disruption last week took the district’s systems offline.

A ransomware attack has prompted a health care chain with operations in six states to divert patients from at least some of its emergency rooms to other hospitals. Ardent Health Services said Monday it took its network offline after the Nov. 23 cyberattack and suspended user access to such tech applications as software used to document patient care.

The council approved over $2 million for updated cybersecurity systems. The decision comes as Dallas County officials deal with a separate ongoing attack.

Dallas County says it was notified of a breach on Oct. 19, five months after a ransomware attack compromised the personal information of thousands of City of Dallas employees.

Dallas' chief information officers delivered their final action report to the city council on Wednesday about the ransomware attack that shut down city servers for weeks.

The new number is up to 30,253, which a city of Dallas spokesperson says includes approximately 3,000 people for whom the city didn't have addresses.

In addition to taking down several of the city of Dallas' crucial services, the attack exposed thousands of people's data to hackers. A UT Dallas cybersecurity expert spoke with KERA about how the breach played out and why.

The money will go toward payment for services rendered after multiple city servers were shut down by the cyberattack earlier this year.