Hacked municipal systems in Cape Girardeau gradually returning to service

Cape Girardeau’s online utility payment systems have been restored after a cyberattack on the city left many municipal systems inaccessible for more than four weeks.

The attack crippled online systems across the city with affected services including city email, online forms, court services, GIS mapping programs, city autopay services and electronic cashier services.

An FBI investigation into the attack is being conducted, and the cost of restoring the affected services will “easily” amount to tens of thousands of dollars, according to information provided to the Southeast Missourian last week by Cape Girardeau finance director Victor Brownlees.

Online payment services are now restored, according to a Thursday update on the city’s website, but new payments made will not be applied until after city staff members enter updated account information.

No city utility bills have been mailed since Jan. 22, according to the updated information. The billing process is done in four cycles throughout the city and billing processes will resume next week.

Cycle 1 and Cycle 2 bills for February were unable to be delivered to the western portion of the city. In the areas, the March bill will show a balance for February and March.

Residents in these billing cycles who use autopay systems will not see a deduction for their February bill, and automatic payments for February and March will be deducted together at the March due date.

Residents in the city’s eastern half are billed in Cycle 3 and Cycle 4, and those residents will receive their February bills on time.

A map showing all four billing regions divided by location can also be viewed at www.tinyurl.com/v3o5mcd.

All cash, check or credit payments received in-office after Jan. 18 were to be posted to accounts starting Monday, according to the city. Online and printed bill balances may appear incorrectly until city staff can update the accounts’ balances for payments made in-office during the outage period. Any automatic payments due between Jan. 22 and Feb. 5 were delayed.

In-office, electronic or online payments made by autopay customers were to begin posting to accounts starting Monday.

Autopay customers with remaining bill amounts due Jan. 22, Jan. 29 and Feb. 5 will see payments processed once all back payments have been entered by city staff.

The update stated all affected utility bills with due dates between Jan. 15 and Feb. 12 and penalty dates between Jan. 22 and Wednesday will not be assessed a penalty.

No services were disconnected Jan. 29, Feb. 5 or Feb. 12, and Thursday’s update stated no services will be disconnected Wednesday.

Court returned to session as of Feb. 4 by cash, check or pay agreement only, according to the city.

An update to the city’s website Feb. 9 stated email services had been restored but “intermittent outages” were still occurring, and messages sent to city email addresses between Jan. 17 and Feb. 4 will likely need to be re-sent.

According to the most recent update, special trash pickup services have also been restored and may now be scheduled by calling (573) 339-6351.

Cape Girardeau police Sgt. Joey Hann said employees within the police department, from administrators to patrol officers, were able to find solutions and workarounds to keep all essential police functions operational at all times.

“The services our police department offers to the community were never interrupted and our public safety functions were never compromised,” Hann stated.

According to Hann, all police information systems, report writing and storage programs, communications systems and intelligence-sharing systems are all functional.

Daily police reports are normally publicly accessible via the city website's online crime map, but those city-maintained systems remain offline due to the hack affecting municipal GIS mapping systems.

Updates regarding the city cyberattack are posted as they are available, according to the website, and may be viewed at www.cityofcapegirardeau.org/news/whats_new/cyber_issue_impacts.