A northern California city of 30,000 people had to disconnect its entire computer network after a cyberattack, idling the municipality’s 911 emergency line for police and fire dispatch.
Officials in the city of Suisun City, located about 45 miles from San Francisco, had to find a workaround for emergency calls and did by forwarding 911 calls to a county dispatch center.
The city declared a state of emergency Saturday after malicious software invaded its computer network and system shortly before 6 p.m. Friday, according to the California Post.
“Officials shut down the entire network to stop the threat from spreading and protect evidence for a federal investigation,” the Post reported.
Despite the attack, Suisun City officials say they found a work around to prevent residents from being put in immediate danger during emergencies.
First responders remain active and dispatched, with city emergency operators routing calls through he Solano County dispatch center.
That way police and fire personnel are able to respond to calls for service,
The attack also disrupted non-emergency city services, including access to municipal records such as building permits and idled residents ability to pay bills online.
The complete shutdown came after the city council voted unanimously to pull the plug and declare a state of emergency at a special meeting Saturday morning.
Cybersecurity for municipalities and infrastructure systems have been in the news during the Iran war after U.S. authorities earlier this year issued an “urgent warning” that hackers backed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Iran were attempting to disrupt American computer networks.
Investigators are still at work in an effort to determine how the malicious software got inside the network and who was behind the attack, according to news reports.
Breitbart contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times true crime best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.