St. Helena Struck By Cyberattack

ST. HELENA, CA — A task force of law enforcement cybersecurity experts including members of the FBI and the United States Secret Service were responding Monday to a cyberattack on the city of St. Helena.

The city noticed computer network irregularities around 7 a.m. on Monday, May 13. Staff immediately alerted the city's IT contractor and began working with the Northern California Computer Crimes Task Force —NC3TF — to investigate the network intrusion and identify impacted servers and/or computers.

The city’s antivirus system appeared to have blocked numerous attacks since about 1:30 a.m. Monday by a virus similar to one that has struck other cities in California.

• RELATED: Contra Costa Cities Report Cyber-Security Incidents

The city convened a meeting Monday morning of its Emergency Operations Center team to determine a path forward. In the team's initial review of the network, including servers and computers, it appeared up to 20 individual computers and at least one server may have been impacted, city officials said.

Monday afternoon, all city servers and computers were offline and city emails were inaccessible. Further, the city decided early on to close the St. Helena Public Library and notified the public via the city's social media channels about the closure.

City Hall was open Monday but with limited services. Community members who need to contact the city for urgent matters can email cityofsthelenaca@gmail.com, the city said.

The city of St. Helena Police Department and Emergency Services, including 911, police and fire were not affected by the attack, as they are on a separate network. The city's water and wastewater plant systems continued to operate and did not appear to be compromised.

Once the FBI, Secret Service and other task force members arrived, they were expected to review the system and do a forensic investigation of the files. Although all files were backed up and do appear to be safe, the city said, it will most likely be 24 to 72 hours before the cybersecurity experts can clear the systems and restore the backed-up files.

Unlike most companies, the city has over 25 different systems some of which house sensitive data for employees, businesses and residents. The city of St. Helena said it was fortunate that many of the systems were cloud-based and therefore less prone to being compromised. The city also regularly backs up all of its files as part of its cybersecurity plan and said all files were last backed up Sunday evening.