Atlanta’s Cyber Attack

In case you hadn’t heard or read, the city of Atlanta has been hamstrung by a ransomware attack that began last Thursday.

The New York Times’ Alan Blinder and Nicole Perlroth provided an update yesterday.  The key facts thus far:

• This was one of the most “sustained and consequential cyberattacks ever mounted against a major American city.”
• It “laid bare once again the vulnerabilities of governments as they rely on computer networks for day-to-day operations.”
• The attackers, the “SamSam” hacking crew, locked up the city’s files, and gave the city a week to pay ~ $51,000 in ransom via Bitcoin.
• While the attack didn’t impact Atlanta’s 911 calls or wastewater treatment, “other arms of city government have been scrambled for days.” 
• But the Atlanta Municipal Court has been unable to validate warrants, police officers have been writing reports by hand, and the city has stopped taking employment applications.
• Dell SecureWorks and Cisco Security are working to restore the city’s systems, and the city’s mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, has not yet indicated whether the city would pay the ransom.

The Times also cited a 2016 survey of CIOs for jurisdictions across the country found that obtaining ransom was the “most common purpose of cyberattacks on a city or county government, accounting for nearly one-third of all attacks.”

In the meantime, many of Atlanta’s core public services are being delivered by that trusty and dependable standby, pen and paper.

If you’re interested in learning more about how to contend with ransomware, IBM Incident Response Services published this “Ransomeware Response Guide (Registration required).” 

U.S. Army Enlists IBM For $62M Cloud Deal To Improve Army’s IT Flexibility

IBM today announced that the U.S. Army has signed a five-year multimillion dollar contract with IBM to build manage and operate a cloud solution for greater IT flexibility, efficiency and performance.

Designed for the Army’s Redstone Arsenal, near Huntsville, Alabama, The solution is part of the Army Private Cloud Enterprise Program (APCE), a one-year task order with four additional one-year options under the Army Private Cloud 2 (APC2) contract. If the Army exercises all options, the contract would be worth approximately $62 million over the five years.

In addition to building the infrastructure, IBM will provide the Army with infrastructure-as-a-service services, enabling it to provision computing power on an as-needed basis for the most efficient and cost-effective IT. The Army also will begin migrating applications to the private cloud, moving up to 35 applications to the private cloud in the first year.

This project required Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Impact Level 5 (IL-5) Provisional Authorization. Information impact levels consider the potential impact of information being compromised. IL-5 gives the cloud provider the authority to manage controlled, unclassified information.

IBM is the only company to be authorized by DISA at IL-5 to run Infrastructure-as-a-Service solutions on government premises. IBM announced the accreditation in February which included a condition limiting the initial number of tenants in the cloud; that condition was removed in September.

The distinction renders IBM an ideal partner for the Army as it undertakes this on-premise private cloud initiative. The Army expects IBM to achieve DISA IL-6 – the agency’s highest level – within one year, which would certify IBM to work with classified information up to “secret.”

Today’s news builds on IBM’s strong relationship with the Army, which last year adopted an IBM hybrid cloud solution for its Logistics Support Activity. Through the solution, the Army connected its on-premises environment to the IBM Cloud for greater performance, scalability and security.