St. George Fire Protection District sues cybersecurity firm over network breach and ransomware risk
St. George Fire Protection District sues cybersecurity firm over network breach and ransomware risk
Publish Date: 2026-06-14 08:05:00
Source Domain: www.firerescue1.com
By Quinn Coffman
The Advocate
ST. GEORGE, La. — The St. George Fire Protection District is suing a Baton Rouge cybersecurity firm after hackers were found to have gained access to the fire district’s network— and were lying in wait for a future attack.
In a suit filed on May 23, the fire district is seeking damages for a December 2023 security breach that its contracted cybersecurity firm, General Informatics, allegedly failed to prevent.
| READ NEXT: Cybersecurity for fire departments on a budget
Hackers in that attack were found to have been “living off the land” inside St. George Fire Protection District’s computer network, meaning they were using legitimate and trusted software tools already built into the network to evade detection and gain access to other trusted networks.
“In ‘living off the land’ attacks, adversaries commonly hijack legitimate tools to escalate privileges, access different systems and networks, steal or encrypt data, install malware, set backdoor access points or otherwise advance the attack path,” the lawsuit said.
Attorneys for the fire protection district suspect the attack aimed to eventually lock the district out of its own network, preventing it from responding to emergencies until a ransom was paid to regain access.
The lawsuit claims the fire protection district was made “imminently vulnerable to a cyber-attack.”
Hackers could also have sought to leverage their trusted position within the fire district’s network to gain access to other state or municipal networks, the lawsuit said.
Law enforcement found that the same hackers who’d breached the fire district’s network had also successfully attacked another East Baton Rouge municipal agency, one that goes unnamed in the filing but is reportedly tasked with coordinating emergency services between the parish and St. George using “computer-aided dispatch.”
This other, unnamed agency was also a client of General Informatics,…
