Oak Ridge malware attack cost city more than $500,000
A malware attack hit the city of Oak Ridge last month, and the city has been working to solve the problem and prevent it from happening again.
Amy Fitzgerald, government affairs and information services director for Oak Ridge, told City Council the city had spent more than $500,000 related to the malware.
She said the investigation was ongoing and did not give a source for the attack.
Oak Ridge Electric Director Ardo Ba said the attack occurred March 20. Fitzgerald talked about the malware attack’s effects at the City Council’s regular meeting Monday, April 10.
“In terms of the recovery efforts and responses, as you can imagine, we had to assess and review every single piece of hardware and computer and laptop in the city operations, and servers in our network — everything,” she said.
She said there was no evidence that anyone had stolen taxpayer or utility customer information. She also said it had not affected utility operations, Oak Ridge Police Department or Oak Ridge Fire Department. It did, however, affect the city’s internet and email services.
“In my own, simplistic mind, we have a very good rainy-day fund, and this is a rainy day,” Deputy City Manager Jack Suggs told City Council regarding the city’s funds for dealing with the malware.
Fitzgerald listed expenses including emergency services; information technology support; new hardware, including servers, laptops, desktops and printers; email migration; anti-virus software; a contractor from IBM to deal with payroll issues; credit monitoring services; new hot spots; legal assistance; and even meals and gas for emergency workers. The total spent as of the April 10 meeting was $515,813.35.
“Fully restoring normal operations will be a slow process,” a city news release said. “Each of the hundreds of computers the city uses every day is being thoroughly evaluated, cleaned, repaired or replaced before being returned to service.
“This process can take up to several hours per computer. Assistance provided by several different groups has been of invaluable assistance, but complete restoration will still take several weeks,” the release stated.
“Any breach of data will be disclosed to the affected parties, and we will work with them to limit any damage done,” Suggs said in the news release. “No payments have been made to these criminals, and the city is working closely with law enforcement to bring those responsible for this attack to justice.”
As of April 3, the city’s court was back in session. The city’s website, Oakridgetn.gov, is back up with a temporary site listing the city departments’ phone numbers.
The official city Twitter account has stated that April utility bills will include both March and April. Ba said the city will waive late fees for the two months. The city has warned about scammers pretending to be the city and offering a full rebate, which the city isn’t offering.