Computer Virus Still Plagues Union City

UNION CITY, CA — A computer virus that forced the I.T. Department to take the City of Union City's servers offline has sidelined some important City work, but not all. While City Hall remained closed until noon on Monday as workers regrouped, the City is now open again during regular hours and serving residents, business owners, and others who have business with the city.

"By now, many city departments have found workarounds to carrying out their service to the public without technology and data systems," the City reports Monday evening. "But, we please ask for patience."

The FBI is looking into the cyber attack. "We are currently working with federal and state cyber security experts and want to make sure none of our work with them is compromised," said City Spokeswoman Lauren Sugayan. "The goal of our response at this point is to restore City I.T. services and prevent the further spread of this virus."

While workers are doing their best, email is still down. So are the payment and financial systems, the business licensing system, planning and building permits, and more. The good news is that if you are late paying a fee because of the computer outage, late fees will be waived.

And here's more good news, the City is insured. Sugayan told Patch early Monday, "any loss we incur due to this attack we would hope to recover the costs through insurance, specifically the diligent work of the City's I.T. team who has been working around the clock since Saturday morning." It should be noted that Sugayan used her own personal email to respond to a list of questions from Patch at 5:26 a.m., so it's not just the I.T. Department that's going above-and-beyond.

Police and fire operations are not impacted by the virus — 911 still works.

The City Council will hold its regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday.