OSHKOSH, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Oshkosh’s government computers are under attack. They’ve been crippled for days by a virus that’s infected the city’s entire network.
“Our ability to access anything on our computer files right now is non-existent,” said Oshkosh city manager Mark Rohloff.
Ransomware attacks were discovered on Tuesday. City employees have been locked out ever since.
“Essentially, what happens is somebody opens an email that looks rather innocuous, but it’s very bad for your system, so somebody opened it and that’s what happened,” Rohloff explained.
According to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the virus is typically designed to deny access to a computer system or data until a ransom is paid.
Authorities have characterized Oshkosh’s virus as ransomware, but Rohloff says they haven’t received a ransom.
“We don’t know what they’re necessarily looking for,” he said. “What we’ve found out is that sometimes they’re looking to see how effectively we respond to it and, if we don’t effectively respond to it, they may come back to us another time with even greater force.”
Residents may pay their bills in person. City employees then give them a handwritten receipt. Mail is an option, too. Or they can be placed in the City Hall drop box.
Besides City Hall, tax bills can be paid at Associated Bank or Community First Credit Union. You do not need to be a customer of the financial institution to pay the bill there.
“This week in particular, property taxes are due and so we’re manually doing a lot of things that we normally rely on the computer to do,” said Rohloff.
The city of Oshkosh isn’t the only one that has been affected by ransomware. Several communities and cities throughout the United States have also fallen victim.
“There are multiple cities throughout the country: New Orleans, Louisiana; Port St. Lucie, Florida; Pensacola, Florida — not-so-small communities have also been impacted, so we were just one victim in this whole process,” Rohloff said.
Cybersecurity consulting firm Emisoft says ransomware hit almost a thousand government agencies, educational establishments, and health care providers in the U.S. last year. It cost more than $7 billion.
A map on technology website Statescoop shows ransomware attacks have increased greatly since 2013.
There had only been three cases in Wisconsin over that time, one in 2016 and two in 2017.
“Before you open something up, even it looks like it’s from a reliable source, just double check it,” Rohloff advised.
The Winnebago County Sheriff’s Office is providing the city computers to get around the ransomware attack.
Rohloff says he doesn’t know how expensive this will be, but he does expect costs to go up for employee overtime, new technology and training.
