CLEVELAND — Cleveland City Hall officially reopened to the public on Thursday, its second attempt to reopen since a ransomware attack shut down some operations. It had tried to get up and running last Wednesday before closing again.
When 3News asked spokeswoman Sarah Johnson why City Hall was able to open up this time around, she responded, "We wanted to make sure that our frequently used services and systems were working: Building & Housing, Licensing & Assessments, and Vital Statistics. We are confident that those systems should work today and we will be able to assist residents with their needs."
On Friday, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb thanked the city's IT workers for their work in helping City Hall reopening, saying officials from other cities who have faced similar cyberattacks took "months and months and months" to open back up.
"We opened up in 10 days. That's a big deal," Bibb says in the video. "I know we have a lot of work to do, it's not mission accomplished yet, but I'm confident with your continued amazing work and your leadership."
The reopening welcome news to Lesavior Moon, who's been needing a birth certificate for a job he's applying for.
"They (the job) asked for it and what not, and it was just an inconvenience that I couldn't get it when I thought I could have got it," he said, before explaining his attempts to get it from the city without going to the building. "I called, got no answer. I end up coming down here and I didn't know what was going on, so it's like my fourth day, fifth day out here."
Sandy Campbell, who owns a landscaping business, has been wanting to register to be able to bid on properties for days now, but says City Hall's closure had put a kink in the timing of her plans.
"I could have probably been actually bidding on properties by now, but now I'll probably have to wait another week or two," she explained. "Time is money. At the end of the day, time is money, so time that's wasted is money that's not being made, and that puts a damper on business. We need to be active as much as possible."
WKYC asked Johnson what services aren't available yet.
"Land Bank applications as well as permit and zoning are still having some issues to process new applications, but are taking walk-ins," she answered.
We then asked her for more details on how the ransomware got into the city's systems, or if any of the public's sensitive information has been compromised. She told she couldn't say, citing an active investigation.
"We can confirm that the department of taxation (CCA), utilities, and airports are segmented on a different network and domain," she did state. "We've run an audit on the activity log, and our review of the system has found no evidence of an attack on these specific systems. As with any ongoing criminal investigation, this is subject to change as our experts learn more."
Finally, we asked her for a percentage of how close all City Hall's systems and services were to being operational.
"I would say that City Hall has 80% or more functional (operations)," she said.
On Wednesday, the city shared that it has no intention of paying the ransom that is being asked of them from the attackers. City Hall opened at noon on Thursday, but will be back to its normal 8 a.m.-4 p.m. business hours on Friday.