COLUMBUS, Ohio — Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther provided an update Friday on the "steady and effective" restoration progress following the city's cyberattack.
Ginther said that to date, all of the city's most critical IT systems have been restored, with 72% of the 441 systems being fully restored. Their goal remains to have all systems up and running by the end of the month.
Ginther added that the city is getting a better idea of the financial impact left by the cyberattack.
When the attack was identified in July, he issued an emergency order authorizing the Department of Technology to invest up to $4 million to protect and restore the city's technology systems and conduct an investigation into the extent of the breach.
Since then, Ginther said the city has incurred additional expenses as a result of the investigation and restoration efforts.
On Monday, the Department of Technology will present Columbus City Council with legislation to authorize $7 million – including $3 million in new funding – to cover costs through the remainder of the year.
Here's the budget breakdown:
- Up to $2,401,052 for system forensics, systems remediation, data mining, data forensics and cyber threat monitoring. These services are helping to limit the extent of the cyber-attack, understand what occurred, and determine what information was posted to the dark web by Rhysida.
- Up to $1,644,348 for Experian identity theft protection services, including credit and dark web monitoring for the public.
- Up to $1,952,100 for legal counsel related to the incident response.
- Up to $1,000,000 for systems, endpoint and cyber-threat monitoring for long-term use by the city.
- Up to $300,000 for legal counsel related to litigation.
- Up to $2,500 for expenses such as hard drives and tools.
"The safety of this community is my top priority – and we will purposefully and intentionally pursue those investments as they are needed," Ginther said.
Future legislation will also be presented for future anticipated legal expenses.