‘Really frustrating;’ City official explains how recent cyber-attack impacts residents

HUBER HEIGHTS — Hackers used ransomware to hit one of Montgomery County’s cities.

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City leaders are still looking into the attack and its impact on community members, but they want to stress that emergency services are working as normal.

Huber Heights dispatchers first noticed something was wrong on their computers Sunday morning. They called the city’s IT support who quickly found that there had been a cyber-attack.

City leaders quickly moved police, fire, and EMS communications to the regional dispatch center.

“Police, fire, EMS operations are essentially unaffected…Phone calls are still going to our dispatchers, and they are able to respond as normal,” Huber Heights City Manager Richard Dzik said.

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Now the city is working to figure out what else was affected.

“What we’ve done is take all our systems off-line, isolated them so the issue doesn’t spread but also to preserve any evidence,” Dzik said.

City workers have safeguarded emergency services, but many other departments are working differently.

The departments impacted include zoning, engineering, tax, finance, utilities, human resources, and economic development.

Those who work in city hall have been busy answering questions from concerned city residents without the help of technology.

On Monday, city staff members gathered to discuss what everyone can do without computer access.

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“There are always tasks that need to be done that don’t require technology, so a lot of staff is focusing on those items right now, a lot of its customer service at this point,” Dzik said.

Huber Heights is home to more than 44,000 people and Dzik said that the city can’t process utility or tax payments from any of those residents right now.

Late payment fees and utility shutoffs will be suspended for the month.

23-year Huber Heights resident Dan Perrine said he wasn’t surprised when he heard about the attack, but he was worried.

“I was worried to begin with, I don’t know if it affects a whole lot or not,” Perrine said.

He said he was able to relax once he heard emergency services were up and running normally.

“You never know when someone has a fire or an accident,” Perrine said.

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Perrine said it seems like everyone is getting hacked nowadays.

“It’s real common with hacking and everything nowadays…Seems like you can’t even go to the gas station to get fuel without getting hacked,” Perrine said.

City leaders say a lot of the questions they have been getting refer to one specific curbside service.

“One question people have is about leak pick-up, that will be normal as usual,” Dzik said.

Trash pick-up will also continue as normal.

Huber Heights City Council has a pre-scheduled meeting Monday night at 6 p.m., and they now have this new item that will likely dominate the agenda.

The meeting will not be live-streamed due to the attack, but the city is exploring new ways to live-stream it instead.

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