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"The Department of Watershed Management's website ... will be
offline for server maintenance and updates until further
notice," the City of Atlanta wrote on Twitter.
Atlanta's watershed department was among the operations hard-hit
by the March 23 attack that continues to block access to
databases, postpone municipal court dates and stifle the city's
ability to collect some payments for public services.
Employees with the water department said they were unable to
turn on their work computers or gain wireless internet access
for roughly a week after the attack, but they were instructed to
report to their offices at City Hall anyway.
Many of the department's systems have lumbered back to life in
recent days, but there is still disruption, said one employee,
who asked not to be identified.
"There's definitely work not being done and there's definitely
bills not being able to be paid," the employee said.
Hackers used a potent computer virus known as SamSam to encrypt
large swaths of city data in the attack and demanded a payment
of six bitcoins, worth $51,000 at the time, to release the
information.
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who took office in January,
has declined to say whether the city was negotiating with the
hackers.
City officials have not disclosed the extent to which its
computer backup systems were corrupted or what type of data is
unable to be recovered without paying the ransom.
A federal criminal investigation into the breach is under way.
(Reporting by Laila Kearney in New York; Editing by Daniel Bases
and Peter Cooney)
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