Includes phone number for those affected to provide information
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St. Cloud officials said it will be sending letters to any residents whose personal information was affected or compromised in the March cyberattack on city digital assets.
The City of St. Cloud has shed some light on the cyberattack that affected some of its systems two months ago, including launching a phone number and website to provide information to employees and customers whose information may have been affected.
City officials said Friday cyber criminals accessed some of the City’s systems, potentially making data accessible to them starting March 17. The ransomware attack, where the attacker partitioned off some city digital files and locked them from being accessed and demanded a ransom to release the files, briefly affected some payment portals and part of the customer service phone system for Toho Water Authority's St. Cloud customers.
Starting March 25, the city began aggressively mitigating the incident, bringing in third-party cybersecurity specialists to examine and scope of the incident and recovery. St. Cloud has requested $100,000 from a state fund created by Gov. Ron DeSantis to help municipalities harden and secure its systems and will be implementing additional safeguards to further safeguard its computer systems.
City officials said it will be sending letters to any residents whose personal information was affected or compromised. Those potentially affected can call 1-800-939-4170 from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, excluding major holidays. Residents should protect themselves against identity theft at all times by reviewing bank and card account statements, and reporting any suspicious activity.
