City of Saint John, New Brunswick hit by cyberattack

November 17, 2020

The City of Saint John, N.B., Canada, has been hit by a cyberattack that prompted the City to shut down much of its IT infrastructure. In a Facebook post, the City said that a significant cyberattack has forced the city to shut down the City's website, online payment portals, customer service applications and more. However, the 911 center in the city remains open.

Here's the City of Saint John's post:

"Late Sunday evening, on November 15, the City notified the public about a significant cyber attack on its municipal networks. The City has been working around the clock to contain the attack and mitigate any current and future risks to the municipality. The response was immediate, and remains in the best interest of the City and residents. Pertinent updates will continue to be provided to the media and public as more information becomes available.

The City’s overall objective is to contain the exposure, control the response and mitigate risk.

The City has been asked by some to share more confidential details about the attack. While ensuring that the public remains informed, and any impact on the delivery of municipal services is understood, the City must also acknowledge that providing too much information would be problematic to recovery efforts. It is a cyber security ‘best-practice’ to not publicly provide details that could further compromise the City’s position, including information on the effectiveness of the attack, the systems affected, and success of our containment efforts. Providing this level of detail would be beneficial to the attacker as they could attempt further attacks; it would also provide valuable information to potential copycat hackers; and could compromise investigative efforts.

The City is coordinating with Federal and Provincial agencies and is working with our partners to help manage any risks. Provincial security and emergency staff are actively monitoring the situation and have offered technical and operational assistance to the city if needed. This includes officials from the Office of the Provincial Security Advisor and the New Brunswick Emergency Measures Organization in the Department of Justice and Public Safety, as well as Service New Brunswick and the province’s Office of the Chief Information Officer.

Investigators with the Saint John Police Force are also investigating, and have contacted the National Cybercrime Coordination Unit and sought assistance from the New Brunswick RCMP Digital Forensics Unit."

Ransomware and the propulsion of the extortion economy has rapidly eclipsed into a national priority. Recently, we observed the catastrophic impact of a widescale ransomware attack impacting gas pipelines and raising national gas prices overnight.