LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — FOX5 spoke to the president of SharkTech Inc. to get answers to lingering questions following Sunday’s cyber attack on the state of Nevada.
Tim Rawi has worked in the Internet infrastructure industry and denial of service attack protection industry since 2001.
Firstly, how and why do these attacks happen in the first place?
“Generally speaking, when an attacker is able to identify a flaw in the system, something that they can access in the internal systems of a network, then they attempt to escalate the privileges and spread around in the systems, generally trying to be unnoticed,” Rawi said.
“Once they have full on access to all the systems that they can, they generally execute their ransomware attack.”
However, as of Tuesday night, this attack has not been confirmed as a ransomware attack.
The Governor’s Office also clarified no personal information has been compromised at this point.
That begs our next question, why else would a cyber attack be launched?
“There could be other political reasons. There could be a nation state attack, it could be several other things as well on that front,” Rawi said.
“If anything else, usually they would stay dormant within the systems trying to get the information that they need without having to cause any disruption to the service.”
“However, it also could be something where the security team at the state have detected something and has basically pulled the plug and trying to disconnect everything to make sure that they are able to control the situation.”
As state security leaders work to get things under control, Rawi hopes this may lead to more resources being allocated to cyber security to better defend against future breaches.
“Perhaps it’s time maybe to look at the at the more holistic approach on security,” Rawi said.
“Those unsung heroes that are in the background right now that are working probably over around the clock trying to get everything back going with an immense amount of pressure on them. I hope they are given the proper resources and tools. This needs to be taken more seriously and better funded as a security issue.”
Finally, Rawi warned the public to stay more vigilant as this issue is resolved, especially given facilities like the DMV have been impacted.
“Be very, very careful about this. Even phone calls these days, text messages, emails, all of that is going to be very important for you to be extremely vigilant about,” Rawi said.
“Look up the department that they’re asking for or try to call them directly yourself. Do not ask them to provide you the phone number but go look it up yourself ask for in person. Meet if you have to. Just be extremely vigilant about that.”
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