DIDSBURY - The Town of Didsbury was the victim of a cyber-attack on Sunday, March 21 when fraudsters encrypted the town’s information systems with ransomware and made a ransom demand to decrypt the system, town officials said Friday.
Mayor Rhonda Hunter declined to say whether the Town of Didsbury has paid a ransom to the hackers.
Fire services, and water and waste management were not impacted, Ethan Gorner, the town's chief executive officer, said in a media release.
“There is no indication that personal information was accessed by the hackers,” said Gorner. “The security of our system and the information of our residents and businesses is a very high priority for us and we will be implementing additional security measures to safeguard our network.”
Town of Didsbury officials contacted police and have enlisted the services of a specialized IT forensic firm to “help contain the attack and secure the network,” he said.
Town staff are working to determine if information was removed from the town's system or inappropriately accessed, he said.
In the release, Didsbury Mayor Hunter said the town wants to “assure our residents and businesses that we are taking this malicious and illegal breach extremely seriously. We are working closely with and under the direction of cyber security experts that specialize in these types of attacks to restore the integrity of our system.”
As well as police, the town has also informed the Privacy Commissioner of Alberta about the incident, she said.
