The town of Sartrouville caught in the web of a ransomware

Local authorities are by no means immune from cyber attacks and more particularly from ransomware. Recently, the town of Chevilly-Larue in the Val-de-Marne was targeted and its IT degraded for several weeks.

On the part of the Sartrouville town hall, the consequences on computer systems have been less. At least as far as the duration of the disturbances is concerned. On August 17, a ransomware (Medusa) affected the town.

Outsourced backups for the PRA

The mayor, however, announced a resumption for the next day, reports Le Parisien. Admittedly, the primary data has been affected and encrypted via the ransomware. The production and backup servers were not spared.

Nevertheless, the city was able to carry out a recovery thanks to its outsourced backups. “We will have lost only a day’s work. But we are going to organize a meeting to learn the lessons and protect ourselves better,” rejoices the mayor (LR) Pierre Fond.

This was not the first cyberattack that targeted Sartrouville. On the other hand, this time the ransomware managed to bypass the defenses in place and infect the forty computer servers of the municipality and its more than 400 workstations.

A damage of 200.000 € for 24 hours of cut-off

All the services of the town hall have been affected and rendered inoperative, with the exception of the municipal police and the identity cards and passports service, specified a source to our colleagues from the Parisian

The provisional damage caused by the Sartrouville attack is estimated at 200,000 euros. The town hall filed a complaint and refused to pay the ransom, as recommended by Anssi. The investigation has been entrusted to the brigade for the fight against cybercrime of the judicial police of Paris BL2C.

The State Security Agency recalls that local authorities are a favorite target for hackers. This is the second category of ransomware victims after companies (VSES, SMEs and mid-sized companies).