‘This is a wake up call' Cyber security expert weighs in on City of Abilene cyber attack

Yahoo

30-05-2025

ABILENE, Texas ()- On Friday, April 18th, 2025, The City of Abilene became aware of a cyber attack on city computer systems. Now, more than a month later, the investigation into that attack is ongoing, and an alleged deadline has come and gone the city stating no intention to pay any would-be ransom for the stolen data. KTAB/KRBC sat down with Cybersecurity expert and CEO of CyberCatch, Sai Huda, for insight into how attacks like this one have played out in the past and what might lie in the city's future.
'This is a wakeup call for the City of Abilene,' Huda said.
Despite today's deadline, City of Abilene says they still won't pay ransom in cyberattack
The City has been relatively quiet on the matter as investigation has been conducted but that's not without reason. Because this attack involves data theft and security measures, city staff is exercising an abundance of caution to mitigate the extent of the attack within city systems and prevent the investigation from becoming compromised. With that in mind, lets discuss what we know so far.
What is a Ransomware attack?
How has the City responded?
What is at risk?
What can we do now?
This kind of malicious software is something that Huda is quite familiar with, telling KTAB/KRBC that it is not uncommon for an entity such as the City of Abilene to be targeted by such an attack.
'Very typical these days where the attackers, the bad actors, install the ransomware into the system, shut down file systems. But while they do that, they also are able to make a copy of valuable data and exfiltrate that. In other words, transmit that out, and then they'll use that to threaten the victim. In this case, the city of Abilene and say, hey, pay this ransom by this deadline. Otherwise, we will not only leave you encrypted and so you won't be able to access any file systems, but also will start to sell that data on the dark web or release it publicly in increments to embarrass you. And it's all about really money at this point,' said Huda.
Cyber Security watchdog group, Comparitech published a research article into the Abilene Cyber attack in which they were able to identify the Russian-based ransomware group Qilin as having claimed responsibility for the attack.
City of Abilene doesn't dispute report of cyber attack ransom from Russian ransomware gang
In that same article, Comparitech states that Qilin mainly targets victims through phishing emails to gain access to computer systems and introduce the malicious software. The group claiming responsibility for 25 confirmed ransomware attacks in 2025 to date. Seven of which were against government entities all across the U.S.
An initial news release put out by the City of Abilene states that, 'upon receiving reports of unresponsive servers City staff began immediately executing the incident response plan in place. Affected servers and critical assets were disconnected from the network to mitigate further spread of the attack. And an investigation with 'industry-leading cybersecurity experts' was launched.
Cyber incident disrupts City of Abilene's network systems, including phones
Since that day the City IT department has been working to restore affected city services and minimize downtime. Some systems were taken offline intentionally out of an abundance of caution, again to mitigate spread.
While the city has neither confirmed nor disproven the claims of an alleged ransom placed on the data and deadline of May 27th, 2025 to pay that ransom. A statement was put out by the City of Abilene saying, 'the City of Abilene administration reiterates that it has decided no ransom will be paid related to the cyber incident that began on April 18, 2025. The city administration has collaborated closely with cybersecurity experts and legal counsel to reach this determination.'
Huda says that he feels this was the right decision for the city to make as he has seen similar situations play out to undesirable outcomes when the ransom is paid.
'I think the city is doing the right thing which is not to pay the ransom because then that's sort of paying for bad behavior. you're rewarding for bad behavior,' Huda going on to say, 'some of the victims, which include cities, have paid the ransom simply because they've done a cost benefit analysis and said, you know what? It's gonna cost us this much money and time to recover when the impact is so severe. So let's just pay the ransom, get the decryption keys, unlock the files, and, you know, we're going to have to have a good faith that these guys will not sell that data. They'll destroy it. So some of them, unfortunately have paid. But, we're seeing a trend now which is positive that they're not paying the ransom.'
Huda stating that even if the city decided to pay the ransom there is no guarantee that the stolen data would have been released.
'And a lot of times the ransomware gangs actually will go away. All of a sudden they're gone they've taken the ransom payment. They haven't provided the decryption keys and they certainly haven't destroyed the data. So, you know, they're really not trustworthy to begin with. And so why reward them?' Huda said.
With an entity like the City of Abilene that has connections to businesses, non-profits, and direct interaction with individuals, the data that was targeted could span a wide range of fields as Huda explained.
'In this case City of Abilene's customers. They could be businesses they could be individuals and as much information about them as possible,' said Huda.
In his professional opinion, Abilene may have become a more high priority target for cyber attacks due to recent increased notoriety through the announcement of the A.I Project Stargate.
'The City of Abilene has now appeared, if you will, big time on the map. The project Stargate, which is the largest investment in A.I in US history, which entails building this massive data center at City of Abilene, is really of importance to these bad actors. But imagine all the people that are already involved in that project. So the construction people, the different suppliers, there are high value targets for these bad actors because maybe they can be ransomed or maybe their data could be used to infiltrate other valuable information about the data center. And when it comes online, that becomes even more valuable,' Huda said.
While there is currently no evidence to believe that Stargate and the Lancium clean compute facility played a factor in the ransomware gang's decision to target Abilene, Huda says the sheer amount of data and information that are involved in the venture are no doubt of high value to bad actors.
'So plans, designs, how those chips are being made, where they're being shipped to. What volume of chips are being made, what types? That's a really strategic importance. And so, you know, these these that actors in this case might be a criminal gang, but, you know, they may be supported by adversary nation states such as Russia,' suggested Huda.
As the City continues to investigate and address the attack that has already happened, Huda says businesses and individuals should be taking a cybersecurity inventory to defend against potential future attacks, data loss, and identity theft.
'So first of all, businesses should be proactive right now and think that they possibly could be attack, target and therefore put some measures in place. So like an incident response plan, which is basically a plan that says, hey, can we recognize a potential incident happening? And if we do, can we quickly come together and prevent that ransomware, for example, from infecting all of our computers?…Backup files should be regularly backed up. They should be offsite, offline, inaccessible to the ransomware, because frequently the ransomware will actually be programed to hunt for those backup files,' Huda said.
Huda advised individuals who may have been impacted by the attack to check their passwords and consider changing any passwords that are linked to City of Abilene accounts. Stating also that passwords should be varied between different accounts and not be made simple or easy to guess.
As far as any potential fallout from this attack for Abilene citizens, Huda says to be on guard for identity theft and keep a close monitor on all financial or banking accounts you utilize.
'Individuals should, number one be paying attention to their credit reports. Put a credit monitoring alert on. Maybe put some credit freezes but be especially on guard for potential identity theft. That could happen not necessarily from this gang, but, you know, other gangs, other criminals that they may sell that data to who may perpetrate that type of fraud, which is identity theft. Open up credit cards, open up bank loans, different types of other expenses, you know, using the identity of the consumer. So that's the risk to the consumer,' said Huda.
Prior to this report, KTAB/KRBC reached out to the City of Abilene with a list of questions. City staff stated that they are actively working to gather the relevant information, but were unable to respond in time for this report.
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