A Month Later, The City of Woodstock Still Reeling From a Cyber Attack

Wednesday, 23 October 2019 14:51

The City of Woodstock is still feeling the impacts of the Cyber Attack from last month with a number of employee's still not on the new trusted network. No cost estimates at this time, however it is expected to be significant.

WOODSTOCK - It was one month ago when the City of Woodstock was hit with a Cyber Attack and they are still feeling the impacts.

The Cyber Attack meant that employee's could not use their emails or access the City network. The attack first happened on Saturday September 21st. The City has brought in the appropriate experts to deal with this kind of thing, who have built a new trusted network. A number of City employees are back to normal now, however it is still, likely going to be another week before everyone is completely back up to speed.

CAO David Creery says the trusted network restoration continues.

"There are about 140 machines that have been declared clean, for joining the new trusted clean network and about 75 of those have been joined to the new trusted network so far. The computers in our workplaces, for the most part now that have been tied into the new network and our working. Connections to the servers remain somewhat sporadic, some of the servers are still under reconstruction, so there is still a fair amount of work to be done in that regard. We have a number of machines in what we are calling the lab that are being monitored for malicious activity on the dirty side of the network. We have a number of machines that will need to be completely wiped and restored. The Criminal investigation as well, it continues."

No updates from Police on any kind of leads in this crime and there has been no word of any kind of ransom demands thus far. Creery says they do not have a cost estimate on how much this is going to cost the City, when it is all said and done.

"The cost is expected to significant, the cyber response team is continuing their work and they are monitoring our trusted network restoration, which is being built in an extremely prejudicial environment, where security is extremely tight as we rebuild this network and they are monitoring all of the activity on our system."

Creery admits this entire process has been extremely frustrating for everyone who works for the City. The Cyber attack has impacted all City employee's including essential services like Fire and Police. Woodstock residents are being asked to be patient, if you have sent an email to anyone in the City, it may not have gotten to them and City employee's will be dealing with a massive backlog of emails, when they are back on the new trusted system.

Things won't be completely finished until likely later next week.