A dozen state agencies were affected by a cyberattack that began on Friday, according to state officials.
According to Mark Raymond, the chief information officer of the Department of Administrative Services, the state’s security monitoring alerted the DAS’s security team that it had detected a suspicious event.
The event matched the profile of a ransomware virus called the “WannaCry” virus.
The WannaCry virus locks people out of their computer and demands that the victims pay a ransom or they’ll lose it, according to CNET.com.
The security team began working with the agencies from which the alert was triggered.
“DAS worked with agency partners this weekend to contain the virus,” Raymond said. “The state technology resources have made significant progress and contained the virus [Sunday] night.”
Raymond said normal patching and antivirus protections shielded most of the machines within the affected agencies.
“The total number of infected machines that were not handled by antivirus protections was approximately 160 across 12 agencies,” he said.
There were no reports of data loss.
Raymond also said the DAS was not expecting any significant impact to state business.
“We will have security resources monitoring for any additional signs [Monday] morning,” he said.
