City of Tulsa still working on network after ransomware attack

TULSA, Okla. — Tulsa Mayor GT Bynum joined the KRMG Morning News on Monday to follow up on the City of Tulsa’s ransomware attack earlier this month.

Mayor Bynum told KRMG the employee email system is back online for city employees but there is still a lot to do.

“That [email system] was a top priority,” Mayor Bynum said. “What we have to go through [now] is each of our computer systems that we use.”

Bynum told KRMG the city is cleaning those PCs in order to bring them back online without a risk of being affected by the attack.

“Doing that takes a tremendous amount of work,” Bynum said. “We have hundreds of different systems that we rely on as a city.”

According to Mayor Bynum, the city caught the attack before the malware had spread throughout their system.

“Usually, cities find out about this kind of thing when it’s fully in your system,” Bynum said. “We’re not paying a ransom. Our systems detected [the attack] before it had fully spread and we were able to shut them down.”

Mayor Bynum told KRMG the city is working with federal investigators to determine the source of the hack. So far, he hasn’t commented on if officials know who the attackers are.

“I will say federal agenices involved have been amazing,” Bynum said. “They’ve just done such a great job of following through on this and keeping us in the loop. Beyond that, I’d rather not comment on their awareness of who did this.”

You can listen to the full interview with Tulsa Mayor GT Bynum and the KRMG Morning News with Dan Potter here.

Cox Media Group