COLUMBUS, Ohio — An "abnormality" seemingly caused by a City of Columbus employee clicking a malicious link from an email last week has sparked major issues for the city, according to a release.
An email from Mayor Andrew Ginther's office says the city's department of technology found evidence of an abnormality in its system on July 18. The discovery was unrelated to the CrowdStrike outage from last week.
As a result, the city severed internet connection to reduce the threat to the city's systems. An exact cause of the abnormality is ongoing.
Since then, city employees have not been able to send or receive external emails. Columbus police officers are not able to pull up information from the leads system or license plate information on their cruiser laptops.
The Columbus Division of Fire is not able to pull up data in its trucks. That means first responders are relying on dispatchers to give them information, possibly delaying responses.
Mayor Andrew Ginther said he is concerned about getting quick emergency responses.
"That is why we are working so hard to figure out what is going on, how we are going to deal with it and address it and correct it moving forward,” Ginther said.
The city says it is investigating whether any personal information was accessed, and anyone who was impacted will be notified. The city is in the "eradication and recovery" phase of restoring its systems.
911 and 311 are still working. City officials say Columbus police and fire employees will get paid this pay period, including any overtime worked.
City officials did not have an estimated time on when normal operations will resume.
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