Dallas still recovering from ransomware on eve of municipal election

Dallas is reeling from a ransomware attack just as early voting is slated to begin for a municipal general election that will determine the mayorship and council district representatives. The election, which is slated for Saturday, is unaffected by the attack, the city secretary’s office said in the statement.

“Since City of Dallas’ information and technology services detected a cyber threat Wednesday morning, employees have been hard at work to contain the issue and ensure continued service to our residents,” Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax said in a statement.

“While the source of the outage is still under investigation, I am optimistic that the risk is contained. For those departments affected, emergency plans prepared and practiced in advance are paying off,” Broadnax said.

The city on Thursday said it isolated the ransomware attack and is gradually recovering services.

Multiple city services are impacted. Courts remain closed, the city’s water utilities division is unable to process payments, permits cannot be issued, and the city is unable to receive applications for public works and zoning.

Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia on Thursday said police operations have been significantly impacted by the outage.

The department’s computer-assisted dispatch and field based reporting systems, internal shared drives and internal applications for personnel matters have been impacted, Garcia said in a statement. These functions are being performed manually while systems remain nonoperational.

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