Officials announced Saturday that no data was held for ransom and that a recovery operation is getting underway after a cyberattack a day earlier triggered a shutdown of city government computers in New Orleans.
Chief Information Officer Kim LaGrue, speaking at a news conference with Mayor LaToya Cantrell and others, said the city hadn’t heard from any hackers or received any demands.
NOLA.com reported that LaGrue described the cyberattack as “minimal” and that officials expect to move quickly to bring computers fully back online.
The exact nature and extent of the attack were unclear, NOLA.com reported. It added that the mayor said about 4,000 computers will need to be scrubbed as a precaution and that 400 servers were affected.
Crucial public safety services continued running normally Saturday as they did during Friday’s cyberattack, officials stressed. But City Hall offices had to fall back Friday on pen and paper to keep doing business as computers were taken offline and certain offices closed.
The city’s website was down in what officials described as a precautionary move after Friday’s cyberattack. Officials, meanwhile, had posted news of the shutdown on social media.
“Out of an abundance of caution, all employees were immediately alerted to power down computers, unplug devices & disconnect from WiFi,” the city said Friday on its NOLA Ready Facebook page.
Officials had stressed that city financial records are backed up through a cloud-based system.
LaGrue said Saturday that authorities were now moving into recovery.
“We’re looking to provide more information about city services and how quickly we can bring them back online very soon,” LaGrue said, without elaborating.
The cyberattack was the second in a matter of days: One was reported in the city of Pensacola, Florida, last week. The Louisiana Office of Motor Vehicle operations also was hobbled by a cyberattack in mid-November.
More from Associated Press
- Democrats and Republicans Are Skeptical of US Spying Practices, an AP-NORC Poll Finds
- BBC, British Airways, Novia Scotia Among First Big-Name Victims in Global Supply-Chain Hack
- Microsoft Will Pay $20M to Settle US Charges of Illegally Collecting Children’s Data
- Insider Q&A: Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity In Military Tech
- Idaho Hospitals Working to Resume Full Operations After Cyberattack
- Major Massachusetts Health Insurer Hit by Ransomware Attack, Member Data May Be Compromised
- Biden Picks New NSA Head, Key to Support of Ukraine, Defense of US Elections
- White House Unveils New Efforts to Guide Federal Research of AI
Latest News
- In Other News: AI Regulation, Layoffs, US Aerospace Attacks, Post-Quantum Encryption
- Blackpoint Raises $190 Million to Help MSPs Combat Cyber Threats
- Google Introduces SAIF, a Framework for Secure AI Development and Use
- ‘Asylum Ambuscade’ Group Hit Thousands in Cybercrime, Espionage Campaigns
- Evidence Suggests Ransomware Group Knew About MOVEit Zero-Day Since 2021
- SaaS Ransomware Attack Hit Sharepoint Online Without Using a Compromised Endpoint
- Google Cloud Now Offering $1 Million Cryptomining Protection
- Democrats and Republicans Are Skeptical of US Spying Practices, an AP-NORC Poll Finds
