A day after warning customers about a potential data breach that may have compromised their personal information, a metro Atlanta city is stressing that the purported cyberattack is only “speculation.”
Officials from the city of Loganville, who reported their own incident Monday amid the continued fallout from a massive online attack on the city of Atlanta, said Tuesday that they alerted the public only out of an abundance of caution.
“At this time it is still speculation that our servers were breached and any personal information was accessed,” Loganville spokesman Robbie Schwarz said. “Until we have confirmed details from the cyber security team that was hired, who will act on our behalf to notify the proper authorities – which includes the Department of Homeland Security and possibly the FBI - we have no additional information to provide regarding this matter.”
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Loganville, which is in Gwinnett and Walton counties, made it initial announcement about the possible attack on its official Facebook page.
“Officials recently discovered that on or about March 15, 2018, a city server may have been breached by an outside person or entity,” the Facebook post said. “The data accessed may have included personal information such as Social Security numbers and/or banking information. It does not appear that this information was the target of the breach, only that it was accessible to the person or entity who caused the breach.”
Few other specifics about the possible breach or its potential effects were released. The post did not mention ransomware, which a believed hacker has used to hold the city of Atlanta's online systems hostage since late last week.
Schwarz said Monday that the city’s “ability to provide services to our customers has not been impacted.”
“We do not know the extent of the breach so it is impossible to know how many people are affected,” Schwartz said in an email Monday night.
Loganville said it also has retained a computer forensics company to assess the breach. It is also conducting “a thorough review of the potentially affected records, as well as its cyber security protocols.”
The city encouraged those who could be affected to monitor their banking accounts and credit reports.
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