City of Quincy still dealing with the aftermath of a cyber attack

QUINCY (WGEM) - The cyber attack on the city of Quincy that compromised and encrypted city files on May 7, is still costing taxpayer money.

The Quincy City Council approved about $18,000 to cover legal fees from a law firm that has been helping the city be compliant with federal and state laws.

Mayor Mike Troup said departments are still not fully functional. He said emails are restored, but tools throughout departments are not.

For example, the Planning and Development Department uses tools when issuing building permits that still can’t handle credit card payments.

Troup said as the city works to restore its technology systems, it has been working with Anders, a consulting company out of St. Louis, to hire more people for its IT department, which currently has three employees.

“So now they’re back in working with us for the next several weeks to help further define specifically, what does that position look like?” Troup said. “What are the skill sets that would be valuable for us to have in that position? And I hope actually by the end of November, we definitely have a clearer direction and can post jobs for that.”

Troup said they also lost six months of the Tyler Project because of the attack. That’s an initiative for new enterprise software, all of the city government would use, which was approved back in April of 2021.

Troup said they should have been going live last month with the Tyler Project and are working to get back on schedule.

Troup said the city also wants to make its systems more complicated.

He said this push will be an ongoing quarterly overview to make sure it stays up-to-date with the latest tools available to municipalities like the city of Quincy.

RELATED:

• City to invest nearly $21,000 in cyber security
• City to send notice to individuals who may have been impacted by cyber attack
• Quincy city council vote to make changes in light of their recent ransomware attack
• Ransomware attack on city a reminder to be vigilant
• Troup confirms cyber attack on city was ransomware
• Quincy city phones restored after cyber attack
• Troup: Quincy facing one of the ‘worst cyber attacks’ to ever hit the community

Copyright 2022 WGEM. All rights reserved.