Colorado Rural Electric Cooperative Suffers Ransomware Attack

A small electric cooperative was the apparent victim of a ransomware attack that caused significant disruption and damage last month. On November 7, Delta-Montrose Electric Association (DMEA) discovered a breach on its internal enterprise network. As a result of the attack, the utility lost 90 percent of its enterprise network functions and large amounts of data, including saved documents and spreadsheets. The power grid and fiber optic network, including internet services managed by the utility were reportedly not affected. Additionally, the utility believes that no personal employee or customer information was compromised. As of November 29, the utility was still working on restoring its systems, indicating the attack’s apparent disruptive impact. This incident underscores the best practice of staying resilient against ransomware by maintaining multiple offline back-ups of your organization’s data. Read more at SecurityWeek.