computer attack news | Hackers managed to give themselves rights:

Nordland County is working to get an overview of the extent of the damage.

On December 23, Nordland County Municipality was hit with data breaches. About a week after the attack was discovered, the county municipality’s computer systems are still down.

– We are still shutting down the internet and we are still in the investigation stage. The condition has been reviewed and we have come a long way than when we started. We’ve been able to find out some of what happened, but there’s still a lot we don’t know. It’s hard work, says Knut Ulstein, director of information technology for Nordland County Municipality.

– Can you say something about what happened?

– No, it has nothing to do with this as long as we don’t have the whole picture, says the CIO.

Acquired rights

Nordland County Municipality is one of the many municipalities that have been hit this Christmas with a serious computer attack. Also joining the ranks are the Nortura cooperative and the newspaper group Amedia – which owns, among other things, Avisa Nordland. The latter is subject to what is called a ransom claim.

Is there a ransom claim you’re getting too?

– So far, there is no indication of that. We’ve been doing this for several days now and haven’t seen anything like it, says Allstrin.

– There are some unauthorized persons who have assigned rights within our systems. In principle, this means that there is a risk that the person in question will do things. That’s why we chose to shut down the internet – to limit a person’s room to maneuver. Now you cannot load or unload anything from there.

The situation is not clear

The Director of IT cannot yet say anything about when the county municipal systems will be operational again.

– The reason the internet won’t open again is because we don’t have a complete overview of what the unauthorized people have done. The situation is so confusing that we don’t dare to open it until we take control again. Had we done that, the purpose of the shutdown would have been pointless. He says: We think we will get control.

– Do you know anything about who is behind it?

– no we did not. The case has been reported and the National Security Agency has been connected. Allstrin says they are the ones who will be able to answer that question.