Nevada
Nevada ransomware attack started months before it was discovered, per report
LAS VEGAS — State workers were put on paid administrative leave. Nevada residents couldn’t receive their driver’s licenses. Employers were unable to conduct background checks on new hires. These were all effects of a massive cyberattack in Nevada that took nearly a month to fully restore its services.
The ransomware attack – though discovered in August – occurred as early as May when a state employee mistakenly downloaded malicious software, and cost at least $1.5 million to recover, according to an after-action report the state released Wednesday.
“Nevada’s teams protected core services, paid our employees on time, and recovered quickly — without paying criminals,” Gov. Joe Lombardo said Wednesday in a statement announcing the report. “This is what disciplined planning, talented public servants, and strong partnerships deliver for Nevadans.”
The attack came on the heels of a long series of cybercrimes against states and municipalities in recent years.
In 2024, Georgia’s largest county was hit with a cyberattack where hackers shut down office phone lines and threatened to publicly release sensitive data they claimed to have stolen unless officials paid ransom. The ransomware syndicate LockBit took credit for the cyberattack in late January that temporarily crippled government services in Fulton County.
Cybercriminals hacked Rhode Island’s system for health and benefits programs and released files to a site on the dark web in 2024.
The Colorado Department of Transportation’s computer network was targeted in a ransomware attack in 2018 by two Iranian computer hackers, though no money was paid and no information was lost.
When Baltimore was hit in 2019 with a ransomware attack that crippled the city’s services for a month, it was estimated to cost at least $18.2 million. A year before, a ransomware attack slammed Baltimore’s 911 dispatch system.
Nevada officials maintain the state did not pay the ransom, the amount of which was not disclosed. The attacker has yet to be identified, and the incident is still under investigation.
The attack against Nevada was a “fairly large ransomware against a state,” according to Gregory Moody, director of cybersecurity programs at UNLV. This attack was able to spread through the state more quickly because of the decentralized nature of Nevada’s cyber systems, he said.
Nevada’s response time was good compared to others, he said. It typically takes between seven and eight months to discover an attacker in a system, and Nevada officials caught it faster than is usual, Moody said.
The attack cost 4,212 in overtime hours – or about $211,000 in direct overtime wages – and $1.3 million for help from contractors, according to the report. The $1.3 million was paid for by the state’s cyber insurance, according to the governor’s office.
The cost could have been much higher, Moody said. When a data breach targeted the Las Vegas-based MGM Resorts in 2023, it was expected to cost the casino giant more than $100 million.
“I think they got lucky,” said Cameron Call, chief technology officer at the Las Vegas-based cybersecurity company Blue Paladin. “It sounds low compared to some; I don’t know that it’s taking into account the economic cost for the state being down for as long as it was.”
On May 14, a state employee accidentally downloaded a malware-laced system administration tool that was made to mimic a tool frequently accessed by IT personnel, according to the after-action report. That installed a hidden backdoor to give the attacker access, investigators with the cybersecurity firm Mandiant found.
By August, the attacker established encrypted tunnels and used a remote desktop protocol to move across the state’s system, gaining access to the state’s password vault server.
The attacker created a zip file containing sensitive data, including personal information of one former state employee, who was notified, according to the report. Investigators have not found that data was successfully extracted or published on a site.
The report includes steps the state is taking and recommendations to better protect the state in the future, such as creating a centrally-managed security operations center and deploying endpoint detection and response, a platform to improve threat detection.
Cybersecurity experts, however, say those are standard protocols that the state should have been doing for years.
“The recommendations that they put forward are definitely solid, but, you know, they’ve been best practice for quite a while,” Call said.
Nevada
Clark County’s Rebecca Place aims to expand homeownership opportunities in Southern Nevada
LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — For Clark County Commissioner Marilyn Kirkpatrick, the groundbreaking for Rebecca Place marked a moment she said nearly brought her to tears — a sign, she believes, that more Southern Nevadans could soon have a realistic path to owning a home.
“I always think that if you want to own a home, you should have an opportunity, and I run into so many people, ‘You know what, I don’t think I can get there.’ Now, I run into people who say, ‘I think I can get there,’” Kirkpatrick said.
Rebecca Place is a 30-home development planned near Rebecca Road and West Tropical Parkway. The homes are estimated to cost around $300,000, far below the recent median price for single-family homes of $470,000, according to Las Vegas Realtors.
The project is aimed at what officials describe as the “missing middle” — families who make too much to qualify for low-income housing but still struggle to afford higher-priced homes.
Homebuyers at Rebecca Place will be limited to households earning between $68,000 and $85,000 per year.
“We love to call it attainable housing because we think their salary should have them attain homeownership,” Kirkpatrick said.
The development is expected to be the first in Nevada built through a community land trust, or CLT. Under the model, the land is owned by the community while the home is owned by the individual, who also pays a ground lease. When the home is resold, it cannot be sold for market price — a restriction the county says is designed to keep the home affordable for the next buyer.
During a visit to the site in the early stages of development, Shannon Mitchell, a nurse who was at a park across the street, said housing costs have become out of reach for younger adults.
“It’s not affordable for my children, 22 to25 years old. They’re paying more rent than what I pay for more my mortgage,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell said she supports the concept and the opportunities it could create. “That’s a good idea for the county, a good idea for opportunities for the families in between,” she said. The project could be in place by late summer.
Some residents have raised concerns about how the development could affect home values. The county said the homes cannot be sold for market value, so they should be assessed accordingly.
Kirkpatrick said the project is meant to offer long-term stability for families who may be able to move in by the end of the year.
“Kids today can’t see the forest through the trees on maybe ever owning a home. This has a piece in it. You can pass it down to your family,” she said.
Nevada
Nevada sues Kalshi to block company’s prediction market operation in state
Nevada gaming regulators filed a lawsuit on Tuesday seeking to block the prediction market operator Kalshi from offering events contracts that would allow its residents to bet on sports including football and basketball games.
The Nevada gaming control board filed the lawsuit as part of an escalating battle over the ability of state gaming regulators nationally to police companies like Kalshi that allow users to place financial bets through their prediction markets.
It sued on the same day that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in a brief in related litigation threw its support behind companies like Kalshi by arguing it had exclusive jurisdiction over prediction markets. Kalshi had sought for months to prevent Nevada regulators from filing a case against it. But a federal appeals court on Tuesday declined to put on hold a judge’s November order dissolving an injunction that had previously prevented Nevada authorities from pursuing an enforcement action. Should Nevada prevail, it would become the second state to secure a court order blocking Kalshi from offering sports events contracts, after a Massachusetts judge on 5 February issued an injunction at the behest of the state’s attorney general.
That injunction was set to take effect in 30 days, but a state appeals court justice on Tuesday put it on hold while Kalshi appeals.
Nevada in Tuesday’s lawsuit contends that offering sports event contracts, or certain other event contracts, constitutes wagering activity under Nevada state law and that, as a result, Kalshi must be licensed.
It said Kalshi had not complied with state gaming regulations, including those prohibiting anyone under 21 from placing wagers and requiring entities accepting wagers on sports events to deploy safeguards against wagers by insiders like players and match-fixing.
The state has already convinced judges to issue orders barring two other prediction market operators, Coinbase and Polymarket, from offering events contracts. Nevada is seeking to have a state court judge issue a similar temporary restraining order against Kalshi, but the company soon after Tuesday’s case was filed sought to have it transferred to federal court, saying the case raised a matter of law over whether it was subject to the CFTC’s exclusive jurisdiction.
The New York-based company contends the federal regulator has sole jurisdiction over its events contracts as they are a form of swaps, a type of derivative contract.
Nevada
Nevada State Railroad Museum introduces new rail bike tours
Las Vegas (KSNV) — The Nevada State Railroad Museum in Boulder City has launched a new outdoor attraction.
The new rail bike tours allow visitors to pedal-powered bikes along historic railroad tracks from Boulder City to Railroad Pass and back.
The tours encompass approximately eight miles round-trip and last about 90 minutes, with guides providing insights into the area’s transportation history.
“This experience allows visitors to physically travel along the same rail corridor used for constructing Boulder City and Hoover Dam,” said museum director Christopher MacMahon, Ph.D.
Designed for adventure seekers and families, the tours run on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays at 1 p.m., 3 p.m., and 6 p.m., and on weekends at 3 p.m. and 6 p.m.
Pricing is $90 per rail bike, accommodating up to four riders.
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