CLEVELAND — Cleveland City Hall and its satellite offices at Erieview Plaza will reopen Wednesday at 11 a.m. after being closed Monday and Tuesday due to a "cyber incident" that the city first made the public aware of on Sunday night.
Cleveland city officials declined to provide much information about the nature of the incident during a news conference on Monday afternoon, citing the need to protect their ongoing investigation into the matter.
Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb said the closure was a precaution while the incident is being investigated. As of Monday afternoon, phone service had been restored, and crews were working to restore access to several key city IT systems.
Emergency services such as 911, police, fire and EMS, along with Cleveland Hopkins International Airport and Burke Lakefront Airport, were not affected, officials said. Additionally, the Department of Public Utilities was also not affected, nor was certain city data, such as resident tax information and customer information."
Cleveland Commissioner of IT Kim Roy Wilson said the city took precautionary measures to contain what she called "abnormalities." The nature and scope of these abnormalities are under investigation.
Without getting specific, Bibb compared what's happening here to incidents that have occurred in other large cities, large companies and major hospital systems.
On Tuesday, the city released the following statement:
"The City, along with our partners, have been working nonstop throughout the night and around-the-clock to resolve this issue. It is our top priority to find a solution as quickly and as safely as possible. We want to stress to our residents to please call 911 if they need emergency services and that they can rest assured knowing that the dedicated members of our Public Safety Divisions will respond. Police will show up to address criminal matters, Fire will arrive to handle fire incidents, and EMS ambulances and personnel will respond to those who call needing medical attention.
We understand and empathize with the frustration and fear being felt by the community, as well as their desire and need for more information. These are extremely complex, nuanced situations. If we could provide more details without compromising the investigation we would, as transparency is a cornerstone to local government; however, we need to follow best practices and the technological guidance from experts in the field who have dealt with these exact situations in the past.
We are using every single tool in our arsenal to remedy the issue and are committed to continuously providing updates as soon as we can and to the extent we are able that doesn’t compromise the ongoing investigation."
In 2019, Hopkins Airport, which is managed by the city, was the subject of a ransomware attack.
Editor's note: An earlier version of this story stated that Erieview Tower is closed. We have updated the story to clarify that the affected offices are at Erieview Plaza.
