Connecticut State Agencies Hit by Cyberattack

More than 160 computers across a dozen agencies were affected by a ransomware attack discovered Feb 23.

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(TNS) — Some state employees worked throughout the weekend to contain a virus that had spread to more than 100 computers, a Department of Administrative Services spokesman said Monday.

Jeffrey Beckham said most computers were protected, but the virus infected about 160 in a dozen agencies. The impact to state business is not expected to be significant, he said.

The bug was detected late Friday afternoon, Beckham said, and staff noticed that it matched the profile of a ransomware virus. The DAS technical security team began to work with the agencies for which the alert was triggered.

Agency IT workers went to work and commissioners were alerted to the virus. DAS worked with agency employees to get it under control so it wouldn’t spread further.

They made “significant progress,” he said, and contained the virus Sunday night. Most computers were protected by antivirus software and other precautions.

“The total number of infected machines that were not handled by antivirus protections was approximately 160 across 12 agencies,” Beckham said.

There are no reports of files being encrypted or of data loss, Beckham said.

IT security staff were monitoring for any additional signs of the virus Monday morning, he said.

©2018 The Hartford Courant (Hartford, Conn.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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