City of Hamilton enters 3rd day of ‘cybersecurity incident’

It’s the third day in a row that the City of Hamilton has been dealing with a “cybersecurity incident” that has snared several city-run services.

So far, the city’s public library and the transit system seem to be the two biggest casualties in what has now been referred to by the city as a “breach,” but the full extent of just how much information has been accessed remains unknown.

In an update Tuesday afternoon, Marnie Cluckie, the city manager, said a team of “extremely talented cyber experts” are working on the matter, but remained tight-lipped on specifics.

“The City must be sensitive about what information is shared. Once the systems are fully restored, the City will work with its advisors on any additional measures that will help prevent this from happening in the future.”

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In a statement released on Tuesday, the city says that while the breach has disabled some of it’s systems, critical services remain operational and where possible, city staff are processing routine transactions manually.

They are still working to identify all city services that have been affected as even council members remain in the dark.

“There is not a lot of information that is available. I know that residents are really wondering what’s going on, but it is an evolving situation and there are some very strategic things that are going on behind the scenes that need to continue.” said Councillor John Paul Danko.

Howard Solomon, a contributing reporter on cybersecurity for IT World Canada says security issues such as this can be very complex.

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“The city says that there are critical systems that are operational but it also says that staff is having to process routine transactions by hand. It isn’t really clear if these systems are offline because of the cyber attack or whether systems have been taken offline by the city as a precaution.”

In terms of accountability, Solomon says the onus remains on the city to keep residents informed and up-to-date on the incident.

“It’s up to the city to tell taxpayers what happened and why, how bad it is, and then what steps is it going to take to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

Throughout Monday, librarians checked out books the old fashioned way and bus drivers lacked their usual GPS software that allows them to manage their routes schedules on the fly.