Cyber attack shuts down City servers

The City of Cold Lake has shut down its servers in response to a successful cyber attack breaching its online security systems.

The Information Technology (IT) Department was quick to respond to the threat, isolating and protecting unaffected systems, while working diligently to assess the damage and further threat from the attack.

"To our knowledge at this time, no personal data or sensitive information has been compromised," said CAO Kevin Nagoya. "This information sits on separate servers from ours, so it was not directly accessible to the attackers. That being said, several servers and IT equipment across the organization have been affected."

The Cold Lake Regional Utility Services Commission's water treatment, treated water reservoirs, waste water treatment, lift stations, and other critical environmental infrastructure are isolated and have not been affected.

The attack came as a form of ransomware and viruses, encrypting and damaging files and back-ups across multiple servers.

"We are still determining what this exactly means for the City," said Nagoya. "Although certain programs and systems are safely unaffected, we are still combing through those that are. It is possible we will have to replace IT infrastructure to get rid of the encrypted and corrupted files."

City facilities remain open at this time, though most are limited to cash and cheque transactions only. Phone lines are still unavailable, and an update will be posted when phone access is back online.

Updates will be posted as more information becomes available. There is no current timeline for when all systems will be back online, but it is expected to be at least 24 hours.

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