City Computers Brought Down By Ransomware

Who: City of Greenville, North Carolina

# of Records/People Affected: Undetermined

When: 11 April 2019

What happened: Greenville, N.C., has effectively been knocked offline by a ransomware attack.

How Did it happen: The city IT department had to shut down the majority of its servers to limit the extent of the attack. A city spokesperson a ransom note was received but did not reveal further details on that aspect of the situation.

Outcome: We will gradually be bringing them back online in an effort to evaluate the impact of the virus and evaluating all of our options for remedying the situation. Additionally, the city has brought in cybersecurity help from other municipalities and that they were prepared to go several days without computer support in order to get to the bottom of the situation. It is important to note that computers don’t run cities. People do. All of our operations are continuing, although we are having to adjust some of the ways that we do things in some areas