Bucks County has restored “core functionality” of its computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system, officials said Tuesday night.
The system, which tracks and dispatches 911 calls, was disabled by a ransomware attack for nine days. Throughout the outage, the county’s department of emergency communications said backup systems were used to dispatch and document calls and “at no point during the outage were the county’s 911 call-taking abilities interrupted.”
“The county and its partners will monitor restored systems for threats or other technical issues while the Emergency Communications and Information Technology departments work toward full CAD restoration,” officials said in a statement.
The county’s connectivity to state and federal databases containing criminal justice information has also been restored, the county said.
The ransomware “Akira” has been identified with the breach, the county said late last week.
While limited public information can be shared, Bucks officials said the county has informed its local, state and federal partners about Akira.
Akira started operations in March 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center. The Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) has victimized more than 60 small-to-medium-size businesses, the agency said in a September 2023 alert.
The ransomware, said the USHH center, drew attention for several reasons including its “retro 1980s-themed website and demands for ransom payments ranging from $200,000 to $4 million.
“Akira has been observed obtaining initial malware delivery through several methods, such as leveraging compromised credentials and exploring weaknesses in virtual private networks (VPN), typically where multi-factor authentication (MFA) is not used,” the alert stated.
Emergency Services director Audrey Kenny said “the path forward will emphasize network security.”
As of Tuesday, there was no timeline for complete restoration of the CAD system.
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