The City of Atlanta’s computer network is still suffering after a ransomware attack hit the city earlier this morning.
Reports claim that City officials discovered there was an outage affecting several internal and customer-facing applications at 5:40 AM, where hackers encrypted some of the city’s data. Fortunately, the outage did not impact the public safety department, water department, or the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
However, according to the recently posted outage alert, applications used by residents to pay bills or access court information were impacted.
The incident is currently under investigation and the city is working with the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and private sector partners to determine the exact cause of the outage and fix the issue.
The city’s local news WXIA reported a screenshot indicating the ransom amount was $6,800 in bitcoin per computer, equally roughly $51,000 to unlock the entire system. When asked if the city would cave and pay the ransom, Bottoms claimed they would seek advice from federal authorities on the best way to handle the matter.
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