COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – One week after a cybersecurity breach ended cyberservice for the City of Columbus, Mayor Andrew Ginther said IT investigators are still searching for answers, but the city’s computer system is still compromised.
Ginther said restoring service and doing it safely and securely takes time.
The city unplugged its internet connectivity last Thursday immediately after the city’s IT team detected a serious problem.
“The issue is we can't restore things until we know they are safe and secure, and so our focus is going to be on public safety, public health, and public utility,” Ginther said. “So it's really essential basic city services, but it's going to take some more time. Our hope is email, both internal and external, will be up in the next few days, and this, as we have more information, will certainly share that with the public. But we need to make sure that we're doing everything we can to make sure the investigation is complete, that it's providing good accurate information because we would have learned from what happened. And we want to do everything we can to prevent it from happening in the future.”
Ginther hopes to have email services for most departments restored within the next few days. The city is trying its hardest to restore full computer services for public safety, utilities, and public health.
The mayor said the city has invested in technology in a significant way, but cybersecurity is a major issue for government, businesses, and institutions of education. After services are restored, Ginther said the city’s job will be to try to protect the system going forward.
“The 311 is pretty much working from calls and paper and it's not the effective and efficient city service delivery that the people of Columbus are used to; they're accustomed to that, they expect and deserve, and we want to get back to that as quickly as possible,” Ginther said. “But we got to make sure we do it in a safe and secure way. Last thing we want to do is jeopardize our employees, our residents, or any of our partners’ really sensitive information.”
There were early reports that the source of this crisis was an infected email opened by a city worker, but one week into the investigation, the mayor said he still does not know if that is the case.
Ginther said he will be transparent and accurate with the public and will reveal the source of the problem as soon as he has answers.
