Office disruption at Pennsylvania Attorney General's headquarters attributed to 'cyber event'
The Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General (OAG) is currently grappling with a significant cyber incident that has resulted in a digital blackout of its services, including the website, email accounts, and phone lines[1][2][3]. The incident, which began on August 11, 2025, has sparked concerns about potential connections to vulnerabilities in the OAG's IT systems, particularly the Citrix NetScaler instances.
In mid-July, cyber sleuth Kevin Beaumont noted that two of the OAG's Citrix boxes were still vulnerable to the security flaw known as CitrixBleed 2[2][3]. This vulnerability, CVE-2025-5777, allows attackers to read memory contents, potentially bypassing security features like multifactor authentication[3]. The vulnerability was added to the CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities list on July 10, 2025[2][3].
While the OAG has not explicitly stated that the CVE-2025-5777 vulnerability was the cause of the cyber incident, information security experts have voiced suspicions about the possibility, given the vulnerability was left unpatched[2][3].
Attorney General Dave Sunday expressed frustration but praised the dedication and professionalism of the IT staff working to resolve the issue[1]. The OAG is collaborating with law enforcement partners to restore its systems[1][2]. As of August 18, 2025, the OAG is in the process of restoring email access and has made its website available again[5]. The cause of the incident remains under investigation.
Updates about the incident are being provided via social media channels, with a statement regarding the outage posted on the OAG's Facebook page yesterday[4]. Temporary Outlook email addresses have been provided to the press to reach the OAG about the incident. The public is advised to stay informed through these channels for the latest updates.
[1] - https://www.attorneygeneral.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-shapiro-provides-update-cyber-incident-impacting-office-attorney-general/ [2] - https://www.cisa.gov/uscert/ncas/alerts/aa25-305a [3] - https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/cve-2025-5777-patches-released-for-citrix-bleed-2-vulnerability/ [4] - https://www.facebook.com/PAOfficeAttorneyGeneral/posts/10160535317514677 [5] - https://www.attorneygeneral.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-shapiro-provides-update-cyber-incident-impacting-office-attorney-general/
Read also:
- Germany's digital autonomy remains elusive at present
- Navigating Strategic Direction in the Age of Artificial Intelligence Automation
- A separate cable linked to an RTX 50-Series GPU melting could potentially not be attributable to Nvidia.
- Russian cyber spying activities under scrutiny, as Frei urges for enhanced cyber defenses
