After a series of ransomware attacks on US House of Representatives email accounts, Congress has temporarily banned the use of Yahoo! email on Capitol Hill.
According to an email from the House’s Technology Service Desk, acquired by Gizmodo, “the House Information Security Office has seen an increase of attacks on the House Network using third party, web-based mail applications such as YahooMail, Gmail, etc. … When a user clicks on the link in the attack e-mail, the malware encrypts all files on that computer, including shared files, making them unusable until a ‘ransom’ is paid.”
“The primary focus appears to be through YahooMail,” the email said, so it will be blocked on the Capitol’s network “until further notice.”
Gizmodo reports that at least one of the ransomware attacks on a House staff computer was successful.
In an email to the site, a Yahoo! spokesperson wrote, “We take the security of our users very seriously, and we’re collaborating closely with House IT staff to ensure that they have the right solutions in place to best protect their accounts.”