Stevens Point City Hall. MWC file photo by Mike Leischner
STEVENS POINT, WI (WSAU) — Leaders in Stevens Point are calling last week’s cybersecurity incident a “targeted ransomware attack,” according to an update provided on Tuesday.
According to Mayor Mike Wiza, multiple agencies, along with the city’s IT staff, have determined that “our existing security, monitoring and professional staff were able to block the attempt before it was [exicuted].”
As the investigation has evolved, there is still no evidence to suggest that any employee or resident data was compromised or captured by those attempting to plant the ransomware. Wiza adds that multiple agencies have been involved in the investigation, including Wisconsin Emergency Management, the Portage County Executive and IT team, and UWSP Emergency Management.
The attempted attack occurred on Wednesday morning, September 23rd, taking down city phone and email systems. Wiza says residents should expect intermittent outages to linger as systems are slowly brought online. That process could last into early next week.
In the meantime, all emergency services and critical city functions remain in place.
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