Local authorities are by no means immune to cyberattacks and more particularly ransomware. Recently, the town of Chevilly-Larue in the Val-de-Marne was targeted and its IT degraded for several weeks.
On the side of the town hall of Sartrouville, the consequences on the computer systems were less. At least with regard to the duration of the disturbances. On August 17, a ransomware (Medusa) affected the town.
Outsourced backups for DRP
The mayor, however, announced a recovery for the next day, reports Le Parisien. Certainly, the primary data has been affected and encrypted via the ransomware. Production and backup servers were not spared.
Nevertheless, the city was able to recover thanks to its outsourced backups. “We will only have lost a day’s work. But we are going to organize a meeting to learn the lessons and better protect ourselves, ”rejoices the mayor (LR) Pierre Fond.
It was not the first cyberattack that targeted Sartrouville. On the other hand, this time the ransomware managed to circumvent the defenses in place and to infect the quarantine of computer servers of the municipality and its more than 400 workstations.
A loss of €200,000 for a 24 hour outage
All the services of the town hall have been affected and rendered inoperative, with the exception of the municipal police and the service of identity cards and passports, specified a source to our colleagues from Parisian
The provisional damage of the Sartrouville attack is estimated at 200,000 euros. The town hall filed a complaint and refused to pay the ransom, as recommended by Anssi. The investigation was entrusted to the cybercrime brigade of the Paris judicial police BL2C.
The State Security Agency recalls that local communities are a favorite target for hackers. This is the second category of ransomware victims after companies (VSEs, SMEs and ETIs).