Board Of Water Supply’s Payroll Software Hit With Cyber Attack
The attack was aimed at the human resources management system the Honolulu Board of Water Supply uses.
Kronos Private Cloud services, a program used by the Honolulu Board of Water Supply and the city’s emergency medical services, was cyberattacked with ransomware over the weekend.
BWS was notified of the problem on Sunday evening. BWS uses the service for its timesheet system. BWS immediately shut off access to the program, an agency press release said.
Honolulu spokesman Tim Sakahara told KHON2 that the city’s EMS department was also impacted. He told the station that employees are logging their hours manually but that no employee or patient information has been compromised.
The Board of Water Supply’s employees are being encouraged to check their credit reports and be on alert for any unusual or unauthorized activity. According to BWS, UKG — the parent company of Kronos — took immediate action to investigate the issue and continues to work on determining the nature and scope of the attack.
“While not much else is known about the attack, this disruption of services comes at an unfortunate time for BWS employees as they get ready for the holidays,” BWS said.
The Board of Water Supply’s customers are not impacted by the attack, the agency said.
Kronos may be offline for weeks, Bloomberg News reported. The attack is affecting major companies, including Tesla and the sportswear company Puma, who use its popular human resources management system, the Tech Times reported. It also impacted New York City’s Metropolitan Transit Authority, the New York Post reported.
News of the ransomware attack comes just days after TheBus and Handi-Van in Honolulu were hit with their own cyberattack, which left hundreds of riders scrambling to rebook their rides.
The FBI and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency are working with local and state officials to investigate that issue, the city said in a press release.
“We are currently working with our inter-agency partners to identify those responsible for this crime,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge Steven Merrill. “As always, the FBI is focused on ensuring our partners at Oahu Transit Services have everything they need to return to normal operations, and we will do everything we can to impose risk and consequences on those responsible for this attack.”
