Only "emergency operation" left

Hacker attack paralyzes entire city office

Hacker alert: Brazen criminals broke into the municipality's servers via the Internet and locked out the officials overnight.(Bild: Annette Riedl / dpa / picturedesk.com)

A nightmare for the administration: Tulln has no access to its own servers. Hackers have attacked the infrastructure and official business is running on emergency mode for the time being.

Nothing works anymore in the municipality of Tulln: on Tuesday night, a hacker gained access to the official servers and digitally locked out the officials. "Many services such as registration confirmations, criminal record information or loss reports are currently not possible," a city spokeswoman announced on Wednesday morning.

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However, infrastructure such as water and sewage are not affected. On Wednesday afternoon, many public services resumed in emergency mode. Services that require access to stored data are not yet possible. Cashless payment has also been suspended at municipal leisure facilities such as the indoor swimming pool.

"The city's IT department is working with professional support and experts from the state and federal security authorities to solve the problem," it continues. Accordingly, all 200 PC workstations must also be checked individually. An analysis should also lead to the originator of the hacker attack. It is not possible to estimate how long administrative operations will be restricted. The city's homepage, which provides information on current developments, is not affected.