Stevens Point, Wisconsin, reported disruptions to city phone and email service Wednesday after several servers went offline, prompting an investigation into a possible cyberattack.
The city warned that departments might be unable to receive or answer calls and emails and asked residents to delay nonemergency business, WSAW reported. Police, fire and 911 services remained available.
City employees could not access shared work files or software that depended on the city's file servers, District 4 Alderperson Andrea Olson told the Point/Plover Metro Wire.
Olson said in a Facebook post that the incident began shortly after 2 a.m. Wednesday. City IT staff called it a cyberattack in emails at 6:51 a.m. and 4:19 p.m., she said. The later message required city computer users to reset their passwords.
“At this point, we cannot confirm it was a hack or cyber attack,” Mayor Mike Wiza told the Point/Plover Metro Wire in a Thursday email. Monitoring software detected some servers offline, he said, and officials were trying to determine what happened and which systems were affected.
Olson criticized a 9:13 p.m. announcement from the mayor's office that described intermittent technology issues without mentioning the IT staff's cyberattack assessment. “I believe residents deserve to know when the City's systems, which hold information about residents, have been attacked,” she wrote. She called for the investigation's findings and a restoration timetable.
Wiza said there was no evidence at that point that customer data had been compromised. Olson said she had received no information indicating residents' personal information was accessed. Neither statement established a final finding about the city's data.
Olson also urged residents to watch for calls, texts or emails claiming to be from the city and asking for passwords, payment or personal information.
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City IT staff and HBS, the city's contracted support provider, were working to restore services, Olson said. HBS's cybersecurity team was investigating the incident.
A separate August cyberattack in Washburn County, Wisconsin, prompted a county technology shutdown that disrupted phone and internet-dependent services. County officials said phones and email were working by Aug. 14. On Sept. 2, every department was operating, but recovery work continued for some employees, printers and programs.
The city had not announced when all affected systems would be restored as of Thursday morning.
