The city hall’s specialists launched a series of radical counter-measures after reporting the informational attack, with the help of specialized companies contracted by the municipality, thus stopping the compromise of the entire system, Timișoara City Hall announced in a statement issued on Monday.
Timişoara City Hall, the Municipal Fiscal Directorate (DFMT) and the Timişoara Local Police were the target of a ransomware-type cyber attack on the servers running several IT systems.
According to the municipality, the computer attack occurred in the night from Friday to Saturday, and the purpose of the attack was to encrypt and block the city hall’s computer system.
“The incident took place in the night from Friday to Saturday and was detected by the digital security system. The city hall’s specialists launched a series of radical countermeasures, with the help of specialist firms contracted by the municipality, so that the entire system was stopped from being compromised. There are no indications that the attackers have extracted personal data from the affected systems”, Timișoara City Hall said in the press release.
The municipality reported the incident to the National Cyber Security Directorate, which is analyzing the case.
The measures to reset the system were applied by the municipality’s specialists throughout the weekend, and the mayor’s office is collaborating with the responsible authorities in the field of cyber security for the return to a full functionality of the systems, it is also mentioned in the release.
All the online services of the City Hall work normally, from the Single Portal, to town planning certificates, online appointments to the Population Record, notifications and participatory budgeting. For the resumption of domestic services, measures are still ongoing in collaboration with DNSC.
For the Fiscal Directorate of the Municipality of Timişoara, the collection of local taxes and fees online or with the card at the counter is temporarily suspended. At the Local Police, online reports are temporarily suspended, being taken further by phone, at the dispatch office.