COLUMBUS, Ohio — Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther wouldn't say if the city experienced a ransomware attack days after an employee reportedly clicked on a malicious link sent via email last week.
The technology issue is impacting all city services. It is separate from the CrowdStrike outage that occurred last week.
An email from Ginther's office says the city's department of technology found evidence of an abnormality in its system on July 18 and the city severed internet connection to reduce the threat to the city's systems.
When asked if a ransomware attack happened, Ginther said, "I cannot really speak to that at this point. We are still in the midst of the investigation. Obviously, once we determine all that, we will share it with the public."
In the mean time, no city employee can receive or send external emails. Ginther says 911 and 311 are functional, but they have been impacted as well.
"911 and 311 are operational, but they are not operating as if they would normally, obviously. The dispatch system at 911 and 311 are accepting calls and a lot of them are working on paper, based on us shutting down the system. It is clearly not as efficient as we would like it to be," Ginther said.
Ginther is hoping the city can start turning some systems back on later this week, but wasn't specific about what caused the threat.
“There's not a whole lot I can share at this point because we are still in the midst of the investigation. This cybersecurity event that took place last Thursday, we are still trying to uncover the details that we can,” he said.
The city attorney's office is investigating. In a statement, a spokesperson wrote, "As you know, the City has engaged law enforcement and cybersecurity experts to investigate the incident and liaise with the Department of Technology to eradicate the threat, comply with applicable laws and limit further risk.
The city attorney's office will assist investigators and clients as needed, but with the critical nature of IT infrastructure, it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time."
The mayor won't comment on if any other agency such as the FBI is involved in the investigation.
“I can't really speak to that at this point. There's an ongoing investigation,” Ginther said.
The mayor did not know how much this is costing the city, he said as much as it needed to fix and prevent.