Approximately 60 credit unions in the U.S. are currently grappling with service disruptions due to a ransomware assault on an IT service provider commonly utilized by these credit unions, as per statements released by a federal agency on Friday.

The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), responsible for safeguarding deposits at federally insured credit unions, communicated to CNN that it is actively engaged in “coordinating with affected credit unions” in the aftermath of the cyber attack.

As of Friday evening, the full extent and consequences of the outage on credit unions remained unclear. Mountain Valley Federal Credit Union, based in New York and among the impacted institutions, stated that the IT provider under attack is diligently “working around the clock” to restore their systems.

Credit unions affected by the ransomware incident, a form of cybercrime where perpetrators typically encrypt computer systems to extort payment, identified the targeted unit as belonging to Trellance, a cloud computing service provider commonly employed by credit unions, according to Joseph Adamoli, a spokesperson for NCUA.

The affected subsidiary of Trellance, known as Ongoing Operations, asserted in a statement on Saturday that the cybersecurity breach was confined to a specific segment of its network. The company pledged to inform individuals impacted once the full scope of the incident is verified.

Reports about the ransomware attack were initially disclosed by The Record, a cybersecurity news outlet.

This incident exemplifies the ongoing challenges posed by ransomware attacks to critical infrastructure in the United States. In recent years, sectors such as hospitals, fuel pipelines, and educational institutions have all experienced disruptions due to these malicious cyber assaults. This trend has prompted the Biden administration to categorize ransomware as a national security crisis.