KINGMAN – The City of Kingman has been hacked and a massive investigation is underway. Public Information Officer Coleen Haines said it was last Friday when city officials discovered the municipal computer system was the victim of a cyber-attack.
“The city has no access to email. We can work with customers through phone calls and in person,” Haines said. “All of the operations are impacted. Some can be done manually; some cannot be done at all…We cannot access systems internally or externally.”
Municipal Court operations are not affected by the breach. Haines said it appears the cyber-attack strictly involves the city.
Board of supervisor’s chairman Buster Johnson said Information Technology staff will inspect Mohave County computer systems. “They’ll be running additional checks to make sure that nothing’s gotten through that hasn’t been caught by our usual security measures,” Johnson said.
Johnson serves as Vice Chairman of the National Association of County’s cyber-security task force. He says cyber-attacks like the one focused on Kingman usually involve an individual or organization demanding payment to end the computer system paralysis.
“They’re obviously not the only government agency that’s ever been hacked and hopefully they’ll be able to get out of it for very little damage to their system,” Johnson said. “I know we were hit once. The county was. I think the guy wanted $500. I said `well, pay him and hire him,’ but we just rebooted our system and restored all of the information and didn’t pay anybody anything.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security and the Arizona National Guard Cyber Joint Task Force are investigating the interference.
Dave Hawkins
