A joint statement published by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC), the National Governors Association (NGA), and the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) urges government partners and the cyber community to reinforce their ransomware defenses.

“The recent ransomware attacks targeting systems across the country are the latest in a string of attacks affecting State and local government partners,” says the press release.

“The growing number of such attacks highlights the critical importance of making cyber preparedness a priority and taking the necessary steps to secure our networks against adversaries.”

To improve protection against ransomware, the organizations behind the joint statement recommend three simple steps designed to enhance resilience against such malicious attempts to compromise and damage IT networks.

State, local, territorial and tribal government partners, as well as all other cyber community members, are advised to implement the following measures to harden their IT systems against potential ransomware attacks:

“Through this collective action, we can better protect ourselves and our communities, and further advance the cyber preparedness and resilience of the Nation,” also adds the statement.

Once these basic protection steps are implemented, government partners are also recommended to go through the best practices published by CISA, MS-ISAC, NGA, and NASCIO for more measures designed to help them boost their organization’s security shield.

Security alerts on the rise

Earlier this month, the U.S. Conference of Mayors also published a resolution suggesting city leaders not to pay the ransoms asked for by ransomware peddlers in the event of such a security incident impacting their community.

CISA also issued a statement during late June warning of an increase in cyberattacks launched by Iranian actors or proxies that use destructive wiper tools to target U.S. industries and government agencies.

Previously, the DHS agency published an alert urging Windows users to patch the critical severity Remote Desktop Services (RDS) RCE security flaw known as BlueKeep on vulnerable systems.

CISA also issued multiple ransomware alerts throughout the years via the U.S. National Cyber Awareness System regarding active cyberattacks infecting computers with SamSam, Petya, WannaCry, and CryptoLocker:

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