Camden County Police Department locked out of case files by ransomware

The Camden County Police Department in New Jersey confirmed in early April 2023 that it had been hit by ransomware roughly three weeks earlier. Reporting by NBC New York and The Record placed the attack on March 13, 2023. Department officials said the intrusion locked investigators out of criminal case files and disrupted routine internal administration.

A department spokesman, Dan Keashen, said the agency remained operational throughout and that public safety response services for the Camden City community, including emergency dispatch, were not interrupted. By the time the incident became public, officials said roughly 80 to 85 percent of the affected electronic files had been recovered.

The attackers demanded a ransom that NBC New York described as being in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The department declined to name a figure, to say whether payment was considered, or to identify the group responsible. No ransomware operation publicly claimed the attack.

One law enforcement source told NBC New York that investigators were examining whether the intrusion began when an employee opened a malicious personal email on a department device, though that had not been confirmed. The FBI, New Jersey's state homeland security office and the state attorney general's office were notified and assisted the investigation. Keashen said the department was working with IT and law enforcement professionals to confirm no threat remained on the network.

The Camden County Prosecutor's Office disclosed a separate cyberattack in the same period. Officials said the two agencies do not share servers or networks and treated the incidents as unrelated.