Cyber Siege: Long Beach’s Controversial Network Shutdown
On November 14th, 2023, the City of Long Beach in California experienced a cyberattack, prompting the shutdown of portions of its IT network as a precautionary measure. With a population of about 460,000, Long Beach is California’s seventh most populous city. The city enlisted a cybersecurity firm to investigate the incident and informed the FBI. The action to take systems offline aimed to contain the attack’s spread.
The city’s statement indicated that the shutdown would last several days, but essential services like city email, phone systems, and public facilities like City Hall would remain operational. However, some digital services would be unavailable, and the public might experience delays in systems and services.
The nature of the cyberattack and whether any data was compromised remain unclear, but the incident exhibits characteristics of a ransomware attack, which often includes data theft. As of the report, no group had claimed responsibility for the attack.
Brett Callow, an Emsisoft threat analyst, noted that if confirmed as ransomware, this would mark the 80th local government ransomware attack in the U.S. in 2023, with 46 of these cases involving data theft. BleepingComputer reached out to the City of Long Beach for additional information, but a response was pending.
