The city of

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

was the subject of a

ransomware Ransomware is a type of malware that Encryption, encrypts the victim's personal data until a ransom is paid. Difficult-to-trace Digital currency, digital currencies such as paysafecard or Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency, cryptocurrencies are com ...

attack which began in March 2018. The city recognized the attack on Thursday, March 22, 2018, and publicly acknowledged it was a

attack. Due to Atlanta's national importance as a transportation and economic hub, the attack received wide attention and was notable for both the extent and duration of the service outages caused. Many city services and programs were affected by the attack, including utility, parking, and court services. City officials were forced to complete paper forms by hand. On November 26, a

grand jury A grand jury is a jury empowered by law to conduct legal proceedings, investigate potential criminal conduct, and determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may subpoena physical evidence or a person to testify. A grand ju ...

indicted two

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

ian hackers, Faramarz Shahi Savandi and Mohammad Mehdi Shah Mansouri, for the attack. The Department of Justice alleged that Savandi and Mansouri are part of the SamSam group; that the SamSam group is based out of Iran; and that the pair created SamSam Ransomware, the malware used in the attack. There are no affiliations with the government of Iran.

Approach and attack

Leading up to the attack, the Atlanta government was criticized for a lack of spending on upgrading its IT infrastructure, leaving multiple vulnerabilities open to attack. In fact, a January 2018 audit found 1,500 to 2,000 vulnerabilities in the city's systems, and suggested that the number of vulnerabilities had grown so large that workers grew complacent. The virus used to attack the city was the SamSam Ransomware, which differs from other

in that it does not rely on

phishing Phishing is a form of social engineering and a scam where attackers deceive people into revealing sensitive information or installing malware such as viruses, worms, adware, or ransomware. Phishing attacks have become increasingly sophisticate ...

, but rather utilizes a

brute-force attack In cryptography, a brute-force attack or exhaustive key search is a cryptanalytic attack that consists of an attacker submitting many possible keys or passwords with the hope of eventually guessing correctly. This strategy can theoretically be ...

to guess weak passwords until a match is found. It is known to target weaker IT infrastructures and servers. The ransomware has prominently been behind attacks on medical and government organizations since its discovery in 2016, with previous attacks on targets ranging from small towns such as

Farmington, New Mexico Farmington (Navajo language, Navajo: Tóta') is a city in San Juan County, New Mexico, San Juan County in the U.S. state of New Mexico. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a population of 46,624 people. Farmington (and ...

to the

Colorado Department of Transportation The Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT, pronounced See Dot) is the principal department of the government of Colorado, Colorado state government that administers state government responsibility for Transportation in Colorado, transport ...

and the Erie County Medical Center. It can also bypass

antivirus software Antivirus software (abbreviated to AV software), also known as anti-malware, is a computer program used to prevent, detect, and remove malware. Antivirus software was originally developed to detect and remove computer viruses, hence the name ...

. Despite no suspects being identified or indicted until November 2018, the SamSam hackers were described as "opportunistic". On March 22, at 5:40 AM, the Department of Atlanta Information Management first learned of outages on various internal and customer applications “including some applications customers use to pay bills or access court related information,” according to Richard Cox, the city's interim Chief of Operations. Soon afterward, the city shut down many of its digital services in an attempt to control the situation, including its court system database and the wi-fi at

Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport is the primary international airport serving Atlanta and its Metro Atlanta, surrounding metropolitan area, in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is located south of the Down ...

. The city eventually identified it as a ransomware attack.

Aftermath and recovery efforts

This hack was notable as it was the largest successful breach of security for a major American city by ransomware, potentially affecting up to 6 million people. Following the attack, the city of Atlanta cooperated with the

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior, home, or public security ministries in other countries. Its missions invol ...

, and

Secret Service A secret service is a government agency, intelligence agency, or the activities of a government agency, concerned with the gathering of intelligence data. The tasks and powers of a secret service can vary greatly from one country to another. For i ...

and hired security firms such as

SecureWorks Secureworks Inc. is an American cybersecurity company. The company has approximately 4,000 customers in more than 50 countries, ranging from Fortune 100 companies to mid-sized businesses in a variety of industries. It became part of Dell, Dell ...

to investigate, and many government computers were advised to stay powered off until 5 days later. Though the city declared that there was little to no evidence that personal data had been compromised, later studies show that the breach was worse than originally estimated. In June 2018, it was estimated that a third of the software programs used by the city remained offline or partially disabled. In addition, many legal documents and police dashcam video files were permanently deleted, though the police department was able to restore access to all its investigation files. For a while, residents were forced to pay their bills and forms by paper. In response to this hack, Atlanta devoted $2.7 million to contractors in order to recover, but later estimated it would need $9.5 million. On November 26, 2018, the Department of Justice indicted two Iranian hackers for the attack, charging that Faramarz Shahi Savandi and Mohammad Mehdi Shah Mansouri were part of the SamSam group and created SamSam Ransomware.

References

{{Hacking in the 2010s 2018 in Georgia (U.S. state) 2018 in Atlanta Crime in Atlanta

March 2018 crimes in the United States Ransomware Aviation security Events in Atlanta Transportation disasters in Georgia (U.S. state) Computing-related controversies Attacks on government buildings and structures in the United States Attacks on transport 2010s internet outages Attacks on buildings and structures in Georgia (U.S. state)