Bay Space metropolis shuts down municipal websites following cyberattack

The Metropolis of Hayward, California stated it was pressured to close off its web site and a number of other on-line municipal portals in response to a cyberattack.

The town has greater than 160,000 residents and is about half-hour away from Oakland and San Francisco. The U.S. Census consists of town within the San Francisco–Oakland–San Jose Metropolitan Statistical Space.

On Monday, metropolis officers said they detected a cybersecurity incident and intrusion into its community on Sunday morning. As a precaution, they turned off entry to town’s public web site and different companies.

As of Monday afternoon, town web site remains to be down.

In one other assertion on a brief web site, town stated 911, emergency dispatch, police, firefighter and medical companies are nonetheless operational.

“The Metropolis has no proof of a breach of non-public data of any worker or member of the general public and is continuous to research the matter with the help of cybersecurity professionals,” officers stated.

“If any knowledge breach involving private knowledge is found, we’ll keep in touch with the affected person or people instantly. Till additional discover, neighborhood members and different members of the general public ought to contact and in any other case conduct enterprise with the Metropolis by phone, mail or in individual.”

The town stated will probably be offering updates on the scenario by way of its social media channels and an e-newsletter.

Metropolis officers didn’t reply to requests for remark about whether or not it was a ransomware incident. A number of cities throughout California have handled crippling assaults this yr.

Oakland’s authorities was paralyzed for weeks after a ransomware incident that finally necessitated assist from the California Nationwide Guard and different state companies. The town of Modesto – about an hour and a half away from Oakland – additionally handled a citywide ransomware assault on the identical time that pressured the police division to revert again to radios.

One month earlier, San Francisco handled a ransomware assault on its Bay Space Fast Transit that later led to the leak of troves of delicate data from the railway’s police drive. The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Division struggled with its personal cyberattack that they stated “concerned malware.”