Oak Ridge city officials explain how cyber attack impacts customers

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (WVLT) - Monday morning in the Oak Ridge municipal building, there was an immediate realization that something was wrong.

“The signs they saw is they lost control of their computers they just weren’t doing what they wanted them to do,” said Deputy City Manager Jack Suggs.

They realized they were in the midst of dealing with a cyber security attack, which directly impacted the business side of the city government. While the fire and police departments were unscathed, the business side of things won’t be able to accept payments for now.

This means that if you have a court date in Oak Ridge, it will likely be pushed back 30 days, and you won’t be able to pay your utility bill, according to Suggs.

“There is not going to be late fees we are not going to be cutting people off,” said Suggs as he assured people they won’t be penalized as the end of the month approaches.

As for how the malware attack happened, that’s still unclear, according to Suggs who added that it’s too early to tell if any data was compromised.

In the meantime, Suggs recommended that if you have city business you should call the office you need instead of emailing. As for a timeline, Suggs said it’s going to be weeks and not days as they’ve brought in outside help to address the issue.

“It takes a long time to diagnose what exactly is broken and once you know what’s broken then you can start to fix it,” said Suggs.

If you need emergency services you can still call 911 for assistance.

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