Atlanta Ransomware Attack's Impact Lingers Monday

ATLANTA, GA — Days after officials announced the city had been targeted in a ransomware cyber attack, some online services remained down in Atlanta on Monday.

City of Atlanta officials, along with federal investigators, were working around the clock to fix problems caused by the attack, which the city announced publicly on Thursday afternoon. According to Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and other officials, outages to some online customer services were first noticed Thursday morning.

City officials are working with the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, Microsoft, Cisco and other federal partners in the investigation, officials said.

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On Monday, the city said that, as of now, there is no evidence any customer or employee data has been compromised in the attack.

"However, customers and employees are encouraged to take precautionary measures to monitor and protect their personal information," the city said in a post on Twitter.

While many city services were back online by Monday, others remained down or otherwise compromised. City of Atlanta Watershed services were operating as normal, but the city was unable to accept online water payments. Water emergency service requests still were being processed online, but no new service requests were being accepted.

City of Atlanta Municipal Court also was unable to process ticket payments Monday morning, either online or in person. Cases scheduled to go before the court are being rescheduled, the city announced. (Hearings for defendants who are in custody were going forward, however.)

City police and fire, including 911, Parks and Recreation and public works (which handles trash pickup) were not impacted by the attack by Monday, city officials announced.

According to reports, hackers demanded $51,000 in Bitcoin — an online "cryptocurrency" that is difficult to trace — in order to stop the attacks. In messages sent to city employees, the hackers reportedly promised to give the city access to decryption software to fix the problems once the payment was made.

It is unclear whether the city paid the ransom.

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