New system online for Cape Girardeau police reports after cyberattack

Police reports made in the City of Cape Girardeau are again publicly accessible through a new, online crime-mapping system on the city’s website, which returned to functionality Thursday.

Developed by the public-safety software company TriTech Software Systems, the new crime-mapping system utilizes an “advanced mapping engine” that provides “a high level of functionality” to the agencies it serves, according to the website.

“Our goal is to assist police departments in reducing crime through a better-informed citizenry,” the website states. “Creating more self-reliance among community members is a great benefit to community oriented policing efforts everywhere and has been proven effective in combating crime.”

The system also provides some new features, one of which includes the ability to receive alerts via email whenever crimes are reported on the map.

Alerts can be specifically tailored to any location in the city, such as a home address or landmark, and can include criminal activity within a distance of up to 2 miles.

Users can also specify which types of crimes they want to receive alerts for from any or all of the following categories: arson, assault, burglary, disturbing the peace, drugs/alcohol violations, DUI, fraud, homicide, motor-vehicle theft, robbery, sex crimes, theft/larceny, vandalism, vehicle break-in/theft and weapons.

To access the new online public-safety system, click the “DEPARTMENTS” tab on the city’s website — www.cityofcapegirardeau.org — and go to the page labeled “Police,” then look for the words “CRIME MAP” in a column of blue tabs on the right-hand side of the screen.

The new system can also be accessed directly at www.crimemapping.com/map/mo/CapeGirardeauPolice.

Prior to Thursday, online crime reports from the Cape Girardeau Police Department were inaccessible for nearly two months after a cyberattack on the city crippled the city-maintained GIS mapping systems through which the old system functioned.

Despite the municipal crime mapping system being inaccessible to the public, all internal police systems for writing and storing police reports retained their functionality during the city’s outage period and police services were never interrupted.

“We have recovered from our IT issues and are fully functional again,” Cape Girardeau police Sgt. Joey Hann stated via email Thursday afternoon. “We are actively at work implementing safeguards to mitigate against any future network failures.”

The outages were initially described Jan. 22 as a “network and server issue that has affected the City’s email and several other digital systems.” At that time, city officials said it was unclear what caused the outage.

A page for information regarding city services affected by network and server issues was established by the city, and a Jan. 22 list of affected services included utility billing payments made via credit or debit card, autopay systems, special trash pick-up scheduling, web applications, mapping systems and more.

The next day, the city sent out an email stating the digital issues were the result of a “malicious cyber-attack” under investigation by the FBI, and stated the city was advised not to disclose the complete nature of the attack until the systems and data could be fully restored.

All utility bills with due dates from Jan. 15 through Feb. 12 and penalty dates from Jan. 22 through Feb. 19 were not assessed late penalties, and no services were disconnected Feb. 19.

Court was out of session until Feb. 4, and the city’s online payment systems were not available until Feb. 13.

City Council members unanimously passed an ordinance March 2 authorizing city manager Scott Meyer to access funds for operating and capital expenditures in response to the cyberattack of up to $500,000 from the city’s Emergency Reserve Fund for “any costs that are not recovered through the City’s insurance for recovery, remediation and future mitigation,” according to an agenda report attributed to city finance director Victor Brownlees.

In an interview with the Southeast Missourian, Brownlees said the total cost of the cyberattack could “easily” be in the tens of thousands of dollars.

Some web applications are still unavailable, and Avolve/ProjectDox is still currently offline, according to the most recent update to the city website’s cyberattack information page March 2.