SHEBOYGAN, Wis. — The City of Sheboygan has secured its network after hackers requested that the city pay a ransom.

What You Need To Know

  • On Sunday, Nov. 10, Sheboygan officials revealed an external third party had gained unauthorized access to its network. City officials said the network has since been secured

  • Currently, there is no evidence that any sensitive personal information has been compromised. The investigation into the incident is ongoing, and officials said if they do have reason to believe someone’s personal information has been compromised, they will alert that individual

  • The unauthorized access was reported to law enforcement

  • The city said there was also a request for ransom

On Sunday, Nov. 10, Sheboygan officials revealed an external third party had gained unauthorized access to its network. City officials said the network has since been secured.

Currently, there is no evidence that any sensitive personal information has been compromised. The investigation into the incident is ongoing, and officials said if they do have reason to believe someone’s personal information has been compromised, they will alert that individual.

The unauthorized access was reported to law enforcement.

The city said there was also a request for ransom.

“We have reported this incident to law enforcement, and while we have received a request for payment of a ransom, we are cooperating fully with law enforcement and incorporating their guidance into our response,” a press release from the City of Sheboygan said.

Ghostscale director of cyber security consulting, Kevin Bong said these types of ransomware attacks started becoming more frequent during the pandemic.

Bong believes the uptick in such attacks can be attributed to the emergence of crypto-currency. Additionally, the increase in people working remotely has led to more opportunities for hackers.

“They’ll encrypt a bunch of computers,” Bong said. “A lot of times when people do that, they will steal a bunch of data, so even if you don’t pay them to decrypt your data, they try and get you to pay them to keep from releasing the data.”

There are several actions Bong encouraged businesses and other government agencies to take to limit these attacks, such as adding anti-virus software, limiting administrative access and using multi-factor authentication for remote access to networks.

The multi-factor authentication adds another layer of protection after entering a password.

“I always really push for protecting your backups. When these ransomware attackers get on your network, the first thing they try to do is go find your backups and delete them, cause if they delete your backups and encrypt all of your data, you gotta pay the ransom to get your data back,” Bong explained.

While Sheboygan officials are investigating how this cyber attack happened and the impact, Bong believes the city did a good job of protecting sensitive information.