St. Cloud to notify more than 7 thousand residents impacted by ransomware data breach

Yahoo

04-06-2025

Thousands of St. Cloud residents are getting letters in the mail telling them their personal information was compromised duringa 2024 ransomware attack.
According to the city, the attack happened between March 17th and March 25th last year when an unauthorized actor tapped into city systems to access personal information.
The city said after the attack, they hired a third-party company which quickly started to investigate. The company found names, addresses, medical information, taxpayer IDs, and social security numbers were compromised. In total, 7,797 people were impacted, according to a city spokesperson.
After the investigation, the city said it, worked to send notices as quickly as possible to those impacted. Letters were mailed to affected residents last week.
'Their data is probably sitting on the dark web right now, and it's likely being sold in some way, shape, form, or fashion to other threat groups,' said John Anthony Smith, Founder of Fenix 24, a company that has helped hundreds of organizations recover after data breaches.
According to Smith, St. Cloud is just the latest local city to become a target.
'Counties and cities are maintaining tax records. They're maintaining property records. They're maintain portions of these records that don't get disclosed publicly. And therefore, threat actors are commonly going to target these types of files,' said Smith.
According to a statement published to the city's website, 'As a precautionary measure, the City encourages individuals to remain vigilant against incidents of identity theft by reviewing account statements, credit reports, and explanations of benefits for unusual activity and to detect errors. Any suspicious activity should be promptly reported to your credit card company, bank, or other applicable institution.'
Smith suggests a few extra measures, too.
'I would suggest to citizens that they get credit monitoring, they freeze their credit reports, and lastly you should probably change how you buy things You should be using credit cards not debit cards.'
Smith said credit cards offer greater protection against fraud than debit cards, which is why he recommends the switch.
He said anyone who receives a letter from the city should be extra skeptical of messages or emails from unknown accounts asking for personal information.
The city is now offering one year of credit monitoring to anyone impacted by the breach and has created a dedicated toll-free number where people can get their questions answered.
That toll-free assistance line that has been established at 1-[phone], available Monday through Friday between the hours of 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time (excluding major U.S. holidays).
You can see the city's full statement about the security breach here.
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