One Web Host Hit, Nearly 70 Mississippi Government Websites Down: A Briefing on the U.S. Next Attack
A cyberattack on website host U.S. Next knocked out Madison County’s site and dozens of other Mississippi government websites. Here is what officials have said, and what it shows about depending on a single vendor.
When a shared hosting provider goes down, every customer goes down with it. Mississippi has been living that since Friday: a cyberattack on U.S. Next, the company that hosts websites for Madison County and 68 other government sites in the state, has knocked them offline.
This briefing is based on reporting by Brooklyn Joyner at WAPT 16 News in Jackson, with added detail from WLBT’s coverage.
Key points
- The target: U.S. Next, a website host serving Madison County and 68 other Mississippi government websites.
- Also affected: Warren, Hinds and Clarke counties are among the others reported down.
- The vendor’s first word: U.S. Next posted that it was having a network outage and was using every available resource to restore service, without a timeline.
- Investigators: Madison County said U.S. Next staff were working around the clock with FBI and Homeland Security teams, and expected a multi-day disruption.
- Ransomware? A retired FBI special agent interviewed by WAPT, Richard Kolko, said it appears to be a ransomware incident. As of these reports, that had not been confirmed by the company or investigators.
- Data: Madison County officials said no data was compromised. County Administrator Greg Higginbotham told WLBT the website holds no personal information.
- State response: The Mississippi Department of Public Safety said it is helping local and federal partners investigate. It is not a U.S. Next customer and was not affected.
What residents lost, and what came back
Mississippians use the Madison County site to pay bills, taxes and tickets. It also carries Board of Supervisors meeting agendas and packets, land roll information and Justice Court fine payments. Higginbotham said the county would put up a temporary page so people could keep paying fees. WLBT later reported that some services, including land records, online ticket payments and Sheriff’s Department contact information, were available again at madison-co.com within hours.
Part of a pattern
The outage comes shortly after a separate intrusion shut down computer systems for the city of Vicksburg and stopped customers from paying water bills online.
What this means for your company
Most businesses don’t run their own web servers. They rely on a hosting company, a website platform or a software-as-a-service provider, often the same one that dozens of other organizations use. That’s efficient until the provider is attacked. Then you are waiting on someone else’s recovery. This is also a reminder for companies that work with government agencies: a public-sector client’s portal, payment page or bid site can disappear for days for reasons that have nothing to do with you.
- Know your single points of failure. List the outside providers your website, online payments, email and phones depend on.
- Keep control of your domain and DNS in an account you own, so you can point visitors to a temporary page if your host goes dark.
- Have a backup way to take payments and to post updates to customers.
- Ask providers direct questions: how they back up customer sites, how they separate customers from one another, and how quickly they will notify you of an incident.
- Keep your own copy of your website and content, so a rebuild elsewhere is possible.
Need help planning for the day a hosting provider or other key vendor goes offline? Reach out to Layer 7 Data Solutions to discuss how we’ve helped companies similar to yours.
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