The City of Ville Chateauguay confirmed on March 9 that it was a victim of computer hacking.
A malevolent program rendered inaccessible the data of several services on Wednesday, March 4. Its services and work posts of about 250 employees are affected, according to the municipality.
(Update in video)
‘’Several employees must work by hand. That slows down the City’s operations,’’ indicated Mayor Pierre-Paul Routhier to the Chateauguay Soleil. The permits and taxation department, as well as the library are notably affected.
The Mayor confirmed that no printed version of a bunch of documents existed. ‘’That creates problems. For example, at the permits department, the people do not have access to the historical facts of all the documents,’’ he said.
The central 911 exchange, the police service, the fire security department, the drinking water feeder service, the B-City request service, and the website were not affected.
The City submitted that it had ‘’no indication that personal information about citizens or employees was able to be accessed or compromised.’’
The Sûreté du Québec is conducting the investigation. The municipality has also hired a firm of experts in cyber security to investigate. Its service of information technologies is also close at hand, ‘’for the quickest possible return to operations.’’
Ransomware
According to the Mayor, a Ryuk ransom program is in play here. No request of a particular amount has been formulated, he noted on March 9. As the case may be, paying the ransom would not guarantee a return to normal, he observed.
Chateauguay emphasizes that it is ‘’unfortunately not the first town to fall victim to a malicious attack of this type.’’
In fact, several United States cities, among others, lost heavily because of ransomware. Some have accepted to pay a ransom of several thousands of dollars to recover the access of their systems, reports The New York Times. Lake City in Florida made a payment of $460,000 to hackers, according to a U.S. daily paper.
According to the Canadian centre for cyber security, ransomware Ryuk can infect a system by the intermediary of emails that would contain some links or files attached maliciously. By clicking on the link, one can launch the installation of a program that encrypts the datas of the computer and servers to which it is connected.
The City has no insurance covering the risks of cyber security, Mayor Routhier explained.
(Translation Dan Rosenburg)
