The Monroe County government server outage last week was caused by a ransomware attack, officials say.
A Monday afternoon statement from the county confirmed the nearly week-long disruption was caused by an entity known as BlackSuit.
BlackSuit is a type of ransomware affiliated with the Royal Spider cybercriminal organization, which operates from the Russian Federation, according to the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance.
Officials do not yet know how much data may have been affected. The statement adds, "While we are still looking into this, the evidence suggests that no employees' sensitive information has been misused in any way."
The same ransomware was blamed for outages last month at CDK Global, a software provider for roughly 15,000 North American car dealerships, Axios reports.
BlackSuit recently leaked information it stole from the Kansas City Police Department after the agency failed to pay a ransom. The information included evidence records, investigation files, crime scene photos and more, according to Axios.
BlackSuit is categorized as Royal Ransomware, which is often delivered via email as a .zip attachment, according to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Royal Ransomware has compromised U.S. and international organizations and has been used to make ransom demands ranging from $1 million to $11 million in Bitcoin.
It’s unclear whether any vendor or public personally identifiable information has been accessed illegally. The county said it will notify anyone affected.
The county encourages anyone concerned to lock down their credit. It is working with third-party specialists to gather more information.
"We have shared all the information we can now," the statement reads. "This is an active investigation at this time, so we are limited in our communications. We have been told, answers may be weeks out, but we will share
relevant updates as they become available."
County offices reopened Monday. County officials did not respond to questions about the attack.
This article has been updated.
