Last week, a cybercriminalmanaged to take down the email used by San Marcos city employees, making it impossible for them to communicate with the public.
On Friday, employees realized something was wrong and notified the mayor, who confirmed the problem and mentioned the possibility of hacking.
As a result of the attack, some of the city's public services experienced delays in responding to the public, but the mayor said emergency services were not affected.
The attack forced some residents to go to city hall to settle matters that could normally be resolved via email.
“When emails are sent, we don’t receive them and we can’t respond to them. We are unable to send email and you know that most business activities in the world are done via email these days, so a productivity problem arises”, said Mayor Jack Griffin.
Security experts in the city’s internet, with the help of external consultants, completely shut down the system to prevent the spread of the damage.
Tasks such as building permit processing, city council paperwork, and financial and accounting matters are all affected. City officials said the system will be restored soon and that government records are “ secure and unaffected .”
Such attacks are not rare, according to a local expert.
“Unfortunately, it’s all too common,” said security expert Jacob Doiron. “In 2018 alone, there were over 10 billion ransomware attacks. Each attack targeted a single device or an entire network.”
The city of San Marcos hopes to restore the problem with email services for internal communications in a few days, but not before conducting a thorough security audit of the system.
The fire department's intervention was not affected because emergency calls are made through a separate dispatch system, according to Griffin. And the San Diego County Sheriff's Department, which handles law enforcement for San Marco, also has its own dispatch system.
