The City of Cleveland, Ohio, is currently dealing with a cyberattack that has forced it to take citizen-facing services offline, including public offices and facilities at City Hall. The FBI and Ohio National Guard’s Cyber Reserve Unit are working to restore IT systems and investigate the attack, which has left City Hall closed for the second consecutive week.

The disruption was first disclosed last week when city authorities announced a reduction to essential operations due to a “cyber incident”. While City Hall remains closed to the public, essential employees are still reporting to the building and utilizing Wi-Fi hotspots to continue their work.

Cleveland officials, including Mayor Justin Bibb and IT Commissioner Kim Roy Wilson, have emphasized the importance of withholding specific details to avoid compromising the investigation. Preventative measures have included shutting down affected services, isolating high-risk systems, and utilizing early detection processes to monitor threats. Essential services such as emergency response, utilities, and airport operations at Cleveland Hopkins and Burke Lakefront remain operational.

Why it matters: This incident underscores the rising frequency and severity of cyberattacks on municipal governments. Attacks like this can disrupt essential services and jeopardize residents’ safety and security. If these incidents repeat, neglect city cybersecurity, and allocate insufficient resources, communities will remain vulnerable, and innocent civilians will likely be the ones to bear the brunt of future attacks and data breaches.

• Attack Overview: Cleveland’s cyberattack has taken key citizen-facing services offline. City Hall remains closed to the public, and employees are using Wi-Fi hotspots to work. Essential services such as emergency response, utilities, and airport operations remain operational.

• Rising Threats: The attack on Cleveland is part of a broader trend, with cyberattacks on city and county governments increasing by 50% over the past six months. Cities like Kansas City and Wichita have also faced significant disruptions from similar attacks. The Kansas City Police Department and City of Wichita reported that the BlackSuit ransomware operation has claimed to have infiltrated their data.

• Ongoing Updates: The city continues to provide updates via social media channels and urges citizens needing critical documents or services to be patient and contact 311 for more information. Authorities have promised to share further details as the investigation progresses.

Go Deeper -> Cleveland confirms ransomware attack as City Hall remains closed -The Record

City of Cleveland shuts down IT systems after cyberattack – Bleeping Computer