The City of St Paul is working on an urgent cybersecurity operation after hackers released 43 gigabytes of stolen employee data online. The leak followed a ransomware attack that began in the city’s Parks and Recreation Department and the refusal to pay ransom demands.
Officials confirmed that the stolen files do not appear to include critical systems such as payroll, licensing or permitting. However, personal records including copies of identification documents may be among the compromised materials. The city manages more than 153 terabytes of data and it remains unclear if the breach extends beyond the files that have already been posted.
In response, the city launched Operation Secure St Paul. This involves resetting passwords and updating security software on employee devices. The Roy Wilkins Auditorium has been turned into a temporary password reset centre with 80 laptops set up to handle 80 employees every 30 minutes. By late Monday more than 2000 of the city’s 3500 employees had completed the process. Cybersecurity experts recommended in person resets to verify identities, secure devices and ensure the correct installation of new security measures.
Mary Gleich Matthews, Deputy Chief Information Officer, said they want to be extremely careful. She explained that the physical process confirms employee identities and ensures their devices are clean and safe.
Employees with take home laptops are also required to install updated cybersecurity software. The goal is to have all active staff updated by Tuesday evening.
The breach was detected on 25 July which led to the immediate shutdown of affected systems. Federal and state agencies including the FBI, Homeland Security and the Minnesota National Guard are assisting in the investigation and recovery.
The Mayor stated that no ransom will be paid and advanced security software has already been installed on over 90 percent of city devices. Some cloud based systems remain unaffected while other operations have temporarily returned to manual processing during recovery.
City employees are being offered 12 months of credit monitoring and identity theft insurance. Officials have not given a timeline for full restoration of all systems.
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