When the whole of the United States is preparing for the big election date slated for November 3rd,2020, hackers is reported to have launched a malware attack on the servers of Washington State Agencies.
Although there is no official confirmation on this note, two people familiar with the incident have confirmed that the servers of the state agencies were reigning under the attack of a sophisticated malware dubbed as Trickbot.
Sources say that the hackers have targeted the systems almost a fortnight ago and managed to disrupt the state operation to a large extent. However, the state election systems remained unaffected.
On Thursday last week, Governor Jay Inslee stated in a press conference that the Washington state was being targeted with phishing emails where malicious malware is spread through attachments sent through emails.
From Saturday last week, the US Department of Homeland Security and the FBI along with Microsoft Corporation, are busy probing the incident.
Frank Shaw, the spokesperson of Microsoft, has declined to comment on the incident.
Note- In the past few months, cyber criminals are seen targeting schools and medical facilities with ransomware and other cryptic digital campaigns. And DHS has repeatedly warning all state agencies about a possible cyber threat to their IT infrastructure just before the US Elections 2020. And that’s being aimed to cause political disruption and loss of trust among the voters.
NOTE- Trickbot is a modular malware aimed to steal sensitive information from systems it infests. The malware also acts as a dropper to other malware such as ransomware and is widely used by hackers to launch man-in-the-middle attacks to steal financial info and login credentials such as banking details.
