The local government of Whistler, a famous ski resort in British Columbia, Canada, has been struck by ransomware.

The Resort Municipality of Whistler said in a statement that it had suffered a cybersecurity incident April 28 that has resulted in its temporarily suspending services. The suspension of services included phone, network and website access, with walk-in services at the municipal hall also being suspended. Infrastructure such as water, sewage and emergency systems such as 911 and the Whistler Fire Department were not affected.

“I appreciate that this is having a large impact on our community already challenged by COVID- 19, as well as Whistler property owners and those who have accessed RMOW services in the past,” Chief Administrative Officer Virginia Cullen said. “Although we have robust protections in place to prevent this type of illegal event, these cybercriminals breached our server.”

The municipality didn’t disclose the form of attack, but Bleeping Computer reported today that the Whistler.ca website was hacked to display a message that the site was under construction and that visitors should contact support, and included dark web address.

The dark web address leads to a chat site used by the attackers to negotiate a ransom payment. The message is said to indicate that the municipality’s network had been encrypted and that unencrypted files were stolen in the attack — a double-tap ransomware attack that has become typical over the last year.

The municipality said that it’s working with cybersecurity experts and that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had launched an investigation.

“Ransomware attacks on cities have been increasing in the past two years, causing significant revenue loss, system downtime and reputational damage,” Gary Ogasawara, chief technology officer of enterprise data storage firm Cloudian Inc., told SiliconANGLE. “Without the proper defense in place, any city or municipality can wake up to find their data being held hostage by cybercriminals.”

To keep its data safe and operations running without significant interruption, cities must ensure that data is protected where it’s stored, Ogasawara added. “Keeping an immutable backup copy of sensitive data can protect it from alteration or deletion for a user-defined period,” he said. “This way, if a ransomware attack occurs, organizations can quickly and easily restore the unencrypted backup copy and resume operations without having to pay a ransom.”

Photo: Pxhere