Immediately following yesterday’s cyberattack, the City of St. Cloud began working with an incident response team to assist us in resuming normal operations as quickly as possible. Law enforcement is investigating the attack. City IT staff and infrastructure are resilient and prepared for these scenarios.
We have implemented measures to continue serving our residents. Our
-
The City of St. Cloud was targeted by a cyberattack early Monday morning.
TUESDAY UPDATE: The city's Transfer Station continues to accept cash payments only, and asks customers to bring small denomination bills if possible. Toho Water Authority’s customer service office at City Hall remains closed.
City officials have yet to confirm if the cyberattack was domestic or foreign in nature, or how much money the attacks asked for in the ransom, citing that the investigation remains active and open.
MONDAY:
While the City of St. Cloud was targeted by a cyberattack early Monday morning, city residents have nothing to fear about their information being compromised or their daily operations affected, city officials said.
Early this morning, prior to the opening of business, a number of city files were hit by ransomware — the unknown attacker partitioned away some city digital files, locking them from being accessed with a ransom demand to release them.
"We have resources at the ready at the state and local level to call on to handle this," city spokesperson Maryemma Bachelder said.
She noted that some city employees have been sent home in affected departments, but by-in-large City Hall and the government is open and operating.
Payment systems such as those to St. Cloud Utilities, Toho Water Authority and Osceola County Tax Collector's Office (which operates a satellite office in City Hall) are on separate systems and are unaffected; a Toho Water representative said its online payment portal is secure and working but is experiencing technical issues with its St. Cloud service phone lines.
As for solid waste, payments at the Transfer Station are currently cash only and staff will catch up any issues there later in the week. All trash and recycling collection routes are operating as scheduled. And, most importantly, emergency response services are still operating.
"If you have an emergency, you will get a 9-1-1 operator, and there will be a response," St. Cloud Police spokesperson Andrew Sullivan said. "We may have to reset the non-emergency line at some point, but residents are not in any danger."
He noted that the city has dedicated backups for files and sensitive systems, and that the IT department will likely work to quarantine any sensitive information then refresh those systems.
"This has happened to other cities as well," Sullivan said.
Those who need to schedule building inspections during this issue can call 407-957-7224. For Public Works inspections, call 407-957-7269.
