On August 17th, government services in Fremont County were halted by a cybersecurity attack attributed to a variant known as “BlackCat” ransomware, or “ALPHV”.
According to the Governor’s Office of Information, Fremont County incident response efforts remain in full effect and significant progress has been made against the ransomware.
“The BlackCat ransomware variant has recently impacted multiple jurisdictions in Colorado, so it’s imperative that every business and government agency should be on high alert and take the necessary steps to protect their systems from being compromised,” stated Office of Information Security Officer Ray Yepes.
Fremont County Officials notified employees on Wednesday, Aug. 31st, that their personal information may have been compromised as a result of the ransomware attack, along with a number of individuals in the community. The county is preparing to notify those who may have been affected and is working closely with Experian to offer credit monitoring services.
Fremont County Commissioner and Chairman of the Board Debbie Bell thanked the community for their patience and understanding and said that they “will proceed with incident response efforts to assess the overall impact and get services back online as quickly as possible.”
Fremont County continues to work closely with the Governor’s Office of Information, the Colorado Department of Public Safety, and the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management to ensure that counties and municipalities across the state are aware of the threat and understand how to protect their systems from being infected with the specific BlackCat/ALPHV ransomware variant.
