The City of Atlanta advised its employees on Tuesday that they could begin turning on their computers for the first time since Thursdayâs cyber attack.
Some city departments had been forced to revert to working on paper after someone breached the cityâs computer network, encrypted data and demanded $51,000 in return for unlocking it.
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âIt is expected that some computers will operate as usual and employees will return to normal use,â a city press release said. âIt is also expected that some computers may be affected or affected in some way and employees will continue using manual or alternative processes. This is part of the Cityâs ongoing assessment as part of the restoration and recovery process.â
At a press conference at City Hall on Monday, an outside computer security consultant for the City of Atlanta said that his firm had completed the âinvestigation and containment phasesâ in response to the cyber attack. Michael R. Cote, President & CEO of Secureworks, an Atlanta-based firm called in to assist the city, said the city was transitioning into the recovery phase.
The cityâs Department of Atlanta Information Management at 5:40 a.m. Thursday learned of outages of various internal and customer applications âincluding some applications customers use to pay bills or access court related information,â according to a statement from Richard Cox, the cityâs interim Chief of Operations.
The public safety department, water services and the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport operated without incident, Cox said. However, the airport has turned off its wifi following the hack.
As of Monday, employees in five of the cityâs 13 departments were performing their jobs âmanually,â or are not able to function as efficiently as they have in the past.
Those departments include: Corrections, Watershed Management, Human Resources, Parks and Recreation and City Planning.
The Department of Watershed Management was unable to accept bill payments online or in person or process new water meter sales.
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