Colorado
Colorado county mistakenly sends $238K to hackers after cyberattack
BOULDER COUNTY, Colo. – County leaders in Colorado stated they mistakenly despatched $238,000 to hackers after one in every of its distributors skilled a cyberattack.
Boulder County stated on its web site that after its vendor was hacked, a spearfishing e-mail was despatched to the county.
Considering it was the seller itself, the county despatched the verify. Nonetheless, it turned out the cash was despatched to a fraudulent account.
As financial institution accounts get more durable to hack, cybercriminals are focusing on 401(ok) accounts
Retirement accounts have grow to be a well-liked goal for cybercriminals seeking to money out.
“Though the county has safeguards in place to forestall most of these frauds from occurring, and we efficiently thwart assaults by fraudsters a number of occasions a yr, we didn’t catch this one in time to forestall the verify from being cashed,” County Administrator Jana Petersen stated on the county’s web site. “Fraudsters proceed to get increasingly artistic of their approaches, and we proceed to boost our safeguards to ensure to attenuate the chance to taxpayer {dollars}.”
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County officers stated insurance coverage ought to cowl the monetary losses after an investigation duties place.
The Boulder County Sheriff’s Workplace is presently working the federal legislation enforcement on the investigation.
“We take nice delight in our work and within the controls we’ve got in place to detect and forestall fraud,” Petersen added. “It’s so irritating that this occurred, and we’ll be taught from the expertise and repeatedly work to assessment and improve our controls.”
This story was reported from Los Angeles.