Wayne 'Slowly but Surely' Restores Computer System After Cyberattack

The city of Wayne, Nebraska, is nearly back to normal after a cyberattack last week took down most of its computer systems.

Wes Blecke, Wayne city administrator, estimates the computer systems at 90 percent operational after large portions of financial information were restored Wednesday.

The ransomware attack left the city completely locked out of their computer systems. Blecke and other city officials solved the problem by wiping their servers and restoring files from backup servers.

“I guess my plea to everybody: make sure you’ve got backups and in remote locations," Blecke said. "Not sitting next to your server and those types of things because you never know when that tornado, or fire or whatever might happen. Make sure you have those reliable backups.”

There’s no evidence any data was taken by the hackers, city officials said. However, some data was lost during the recovery process because not all of it was backed up, according to Blecke.

Wayne officials aren’t sure how the hackers got access to the city’s systems or who they are. The hackers had demanded $500,000 to unlock the systems last Tuesday, but the city never paid the ransom.