Updating a story we brought you last night, City Hall confirms it fell victim to a cyber attack Monday, necessitating all MIS systems be shut down to protect tech and data assets. The confirmation came via social media post on the city’s official Twitter page.
The Twitter thread goes on to say the attack likely began early Monday morning and that MIS is coordinating with law enforcement and actively investigating scope and severity of the issue.
The city also says there is no reason to believe that any of the City’s data has been compromised at this time, and that they are following best practices and developing a response plan to address the issue. All systems will be kept offline indefinitely until services can be safely restored.
The City Manager and his team are actively monitoring the situation and will provide updated information as it becomes available through a variety of channels, including the City’s official website: https://lowellma.gov, Facebook and Twitter.
In terms of how this will affect city business, payments for Real Estate, Personal Property, Motor Vehicle Excise, Water Utility, Vital Records, Burial Permits, Cemetery Lot purchases, and other services will still being accepted through the City’s online Invoice Cloud payment system, though those payments may not be immediately reflected online. In the meantime, you should expect delays when interacting with the City as we work towards recovery.
Despite earlier information that the school department was also impacted, Community Outreach Specialist Jen Myers told us Tuesday morning that Lowell Public Schools operations have not been affected. However, because the MUNIS system is still down, the Human Resources/Payroll department may not be able to process the COVID stipends that were scheduled to go out to school dept employees this week.
