Kansas City mayor describes network outage strategy
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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — On Wednesday, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas answered questions in the wake of a network outage that has affected systems starting nearly two weeks ago.
Kansas City officials initiated their security process after becoming aware of the possible suspicious activity, but that’s as far as the mayor went in describing the situation.
Lucas, however, did draw comparisons to other nearby municipalities going through admitted cyberattacks.
It is one of the first updates the public has received outside of a statement issued when the situation initially popped-off.
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Lucas reiterated many of those same points, adding that their critical services including police, fire, and also payroll, are all unaffected.
But the question remains. What is the possible suspicious activity being investigated?
“Unfortunately, as you likely know, these types of incidents are becoming more and more common. As our investigation continues it’s important we avoid spreading incorrect information or spreading unconfirmed details,” Lucas said.
On the steps of city hall, Lucas said the decision to shut down certain services came from the city itself, launching an investigation.
“The way that you secure in this type of situation is that you close everything. It’s that you shut things down. Imagine putting shutters over every window possible because perhaps there are bird that are flying in this direction. So for us it is making sure that follow through, we do a thorough investigation and that is part of why you see such a substantial impact on operations,” Lucas said.
He says city email is back up as well as their website. Wastewater, aviation, trash are also unaffected. (although payment options may be changed for the moment)
But Lucas also clearly made an effort to choose his words while speaking on the issue – notably when indicating on-going concern when asked about other governments experiencing cyber-attacks.
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“It’s still early in the investigation in connection with some of the other attacks we have heard about or attacks that we have heard about generally cause we’re still not complete on what our investigation is. That is on-going,” Lucas said.
“I will say that we stay in touch with law enforcement in other jurisdictions regularly and jurisdictions close to us, across the street like in Jackson County or further away, we’ve heard about issues in Wichita, Kansas,” Lucas said.
Kansas City has offered no timetabled for when their network security investigation will be complete.
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“While this process may take some time we are committed to performing a full and thorough investigation and keeping everyone updated. In terms of further details, at this time we’re unable to confirm whether the network activity detected had any impact on the data stored on our servers. But determining whether it has is a top priority,” Lucas said.
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