According to the release, an external party temporarily gained access to the city’s servers Oct. 23.
Automated security systems responded immediately, helping to contain and mitigate the impact. As a precautionary measure, access to the servers has been temporarily shut down, limiting access to some systems and digital services.
The details
Internet and digital systems and initially phone lines have been impacted at multiple city facilities. Both internal and external experts are working to bring these systems back online and restore full functionality, officials said in the release. Officials restored phone system functionality Nov. 1.
City officials are cooperating with the appropriate state and federal law enforcement agencies, and efforts are underway to restore internal systems and notify impacted parties.
The city exercises extensive trainings, tools and systems in place to help prevent these types of events from being successful, and these security measures helped to minimize the overall impact, City Manager Mike Land said in the release.
"Nonetheless, bad actors were able to disrupt our network environment, and we have reason to believe that some of the older data on one of our servers could have been impacted as a result,” Land stated. “Our investigation into the full scope of data affected remains ongoing."
More details
While phone systems have been restored, the city is still experiencing issues with the following:
- Utility billing
- CCS Portal used for permits, inspections and backflow device registration
- Service requests from the city website
- Municipal court trial dates and citation payments
- GIS maps
- Online group exercise classes at the CORE fitness center
- Digital library services
- Public records requests
Zooming in
While online bill pay remains unavailable, staff are now able to access the system and are working to post all payments and process any outstanding account requests. Due to the interruptions officials are generating a delayed billing cycle. The Oct. 1-31 billing period that would normally be mailed by Nov. 4 will now be mailed Nov. 12 and due by Nov. 30, per the release.
The billing period from Nov. 1 through Nov. 30 will resume the city's normal billing date and payment due date schedule. No late fees and no disconnections will occur during the month of November.
While many online services have been impacted, some—those hosted by third-party servers—remain available, including program registration on Coppell ActiveNet. City departments have temporarily adjusted their processes to continue to serve the community.
Emergency calls are not impacted and will be connected to the city dispatch team, per the news release.
Residents can find information about how to conduct business with the city here until these systems are restored.
Also of note
The city believes the data stored on one particular server may have included partial, and potentially outdated, individual and vendor information.
Identifying the specific nature of this data remains the top priority of the city's ongoing investigation, the news release states. As officials work to restore the city network from backups, they will continue to learn more about the incident, its root cause and who specifically may have been impacted, according to the release.
Officials are also assessing security enhancement options to help further protect and shield against future threats.
“We understand our responsibility to protect the information we receive and maintain, and we are working diligently to investigate, resolve this incident and assist those impacted,” Land said in the release.
