RICHARDSON, Texas — The City of Richardson is continuing efforts to restore services after a cyber attack on its servers.
Richardson officials said on Monday, Sept. 30, that their IT team has restored services affecting online customer portals on the city's website. While city officials say that's a step forward, efforts to fully restore servers "is causing intermittent outages for services like the city’s 24-hour response telephone line and utility billing."
In a release, Richardson officials confirmed online payment portals remain available but there may be delays in posting payments. Richardson's 24-hour response center telephone number might also be temporarily unavailable at times, so residents calling to report non-emergency issues can call 972-744-4487.
According to a release from the city, an external party gained access to city servers at 6:22 a.m. on Wednesday and tried to encrypt data files on the network. The city says a small number of files were encrypted, but network security systems prevented further damage.
In the statement, the city said the specific type of data that was compromised is still under review, but "there is no early indication sensitive data was accessed."
According to city officials, while access to internal systems was limited, essential services like emergency response, online payments, solid waste services and other customer portals were still available.
The city said they are cooperating with the FBI, which is investigating, and the Department of Homeland Security.
“The threat of these incidents is a reality that all cities face, and it is something we have been diligently preparing for,” said City Manager Don Magner. “At this point, our security protocols seem to have successfully minimized the impact, and we hope this continues. We are doing everything in our power to restore our systems as quickly as possible and will identify resources necessary to assist affected individuals, if necessary.”
