Augusta, Ga. (WJBF) – It’s business as unusual at Augusta’s Tax Commissioners office, now in the second week of the city cyber-attack.
“It’s frustrating that we can’t give them the answers to the questions they would like to have, however we recognize the city is working diligently to get us back online,” said Tax Commissioner Chris Johnson.
License plate tags are being processed because those are on the state computer system, but at the Tax Commissioners office there’s still no work on property taxes.
“That information is on the city website we’re not able to process property taxes right now,” said Johnson.
The cyber-attack is in the way of people doing business with the city, now it’s in the way of the city doing its business.
The scheduled Tuesday commission committee meetings postponed, the mayor saying so the city can focus on the attack.
“We are in the process of working through this incident making sure we get our departments and our stake holders back online so that’s what our focus is right now that’s what we’re concentrating on,” said Mayor Garnett Johnson.
Cyber news websites say a ransom-ware group called Blackbyte is responsible for the Augusta attack, and the group has city data and is demanding up to $400 thousand dollars.
Friday in a prepared statement the mayor said there’s been no demands Augusta pay up, so is that still the case?
“That still remains the same to date the city of Augusta has not received any formal requests for any amount of money for any information,” said Mayor Johnson.
Federal, state,and local authorities are investigating this cyber-attack, while taxpayers wait for systems to return to normal.
