Running entire cities on computer systems is very nice in theory, & is probably a ton easier than the ‘paper & pencil’methods of the past. But this is one of the serious problems city officials & cyber cops face & haven’t been able to solve yet.
The FBI is investigating a mass ransom-hack of Atlanta’s computer systems affecting payroll, customer’s billing & court information.
A city spokesperson provided an update on the situation via AJC.com:
“The City of Atlanta is currently experiencing outages on various internal and customer facing applications, including some applications that customers use to pay bills or access court-related information,” a city spokesperson said. “We are confident that our team of technology professionals will be able to restore applications soon. Our City website, Atlantaga.gov, remains accessible and we will provide updates as we receive them.”
Atlanta police are asking city employees to unplug their computers, however, they fear the damage has already been done & are warning people that their paychecks could be affected by the breach.