Nearly four months after ransomware destroyed most of the City of Hamilton’s cyber infrastructure, the municipality restored its general inquiry mailbox.
On Friday the city announced that the service for non-urgent requests and general inquiries was back up and running.
Residents can now correspond with the city through email, eliminating the need to call the front desk of city hall.
So far, the city has restored several of the services that were disrupted by the hack, including:
- Pre-authorized payment plans system for property taxes;
- Hamilton Street Railway’s (HSR) fare assist online application portal;
- Several of its public phone lines for Ontario Works; and
- Recreation programming.
At the start of May, the city created a new job board platform to fill some the critical front-line vacancies it was experiencing.
READ MORE: Hamilton launches new job board to fill critical front-line roles
However, several online city-run platforms continue to be ensnarled by the cybersecurity incident, including its city mapping software, which provides information on zoning allowances and ward boundaries.
Additionally, the public library system, HSR, many of the city’s licensing portals and phone and fax systems continue to experience outages.
It remains unclear how long it will take for the city to fully restore the remaining services that the ransomware attack has impacted.
The city’s website says it cannot provide a timeline for a full restoration.
For more information on the ongoing cybersecurity incident that the City of Hamilton is experiencing, click here.
READ MORE: City of Hamilton shifting to ‘recovery and rebuilding’ in cyberattack response
The City of Hamilton’s askcity@hamilton.ca general inquiry email has been restored. The City receives more than 14,000 askcity emails a year. Please feel free to email askcity@hamilton.ca for any non-urgent requests or general inquiries. pic.twitter.com/QYvzKt6pss
— City of Hamilton (@cityofhamilton) June 7, 2024