[BreachExchange] Eight U.S. Cities Impacted in New Series of Click2Gov Breaches

[Destry Winant]

https://www.securityweek.com/eight-us-cities-impacted-new-series-click2gov-breaches

More than 20,000 records from eight cities across the United States
have been compromised in a new wave of Click2Gov breaches, Gemini
Advisory reports.

Developed by Superion (now CentralSquare Technologies), Click2Gov
provides cities with a self-service bill-pay portal for utilities,
community development, and parking tickets.

Breaches at Click2Gov customers were first spotted in October 2017,
and security researchers said last year that they were performed by a
previously unknown threat actor.

In December last year, Gemini Advisory said that over 300,000 payment
card records from dozens of cities across the United States and Canada
were compromised in a breach at Click2Gov between 2017 and late 2018.

Now, the company reveals that over 20,000 records from eight cities in
five different states have been compromised in a new wave of attacks
that started in August 2019. Cardholders in all 50 states were
affected, as many remotely transacted with the Click2Gov portal in
affected cities.

Six of these cities were compromised in the initial breach as well.
Although many of the cities impacted in the initial attack patched
their systems to prevent future compromise, attackers have found new
means to breach them, it seems.

“Analysts confirmed that many of the affected towns were operating
patched and up-to-date Click2Gov systems but were affected
nonetheless. Given the success of the first campaign, which generated
over $1.9 million in illicit revenue, the threat actors would likely
have both the motive and the budget to conduct a second Click2Gov
campaign,” Gemini says.

Gemini says they attempted to contact several of the eight towns about
the attacks and that most did not respond. Those that did, however,
confirmed that their Click2Gov utility payment portals were breached.
Others took the portals offline although they did not respond to
Gemini’s outreach.

The new wave of attacks shows that despite patched systems, the
Click2Gov portal remains vulnerable and that cybercriminals are
willing to repeatedly target the same victims. Thus, organizations are
advised to regularly monitor systems for breaches and to always keep
up to date on patches.