th<\/sup> largest economy in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\nI want to thank Chairman Bennie Thompson and Subcommittee Chairman Cedric Richmond for inviting me today to testify at this important hearing. I am honored to be here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the early morning hours of March 22, 2018, Atlanta\u2019s government experienced a ransomware cyberattack which impacted our operations and our ability to provide services to our residents and visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To paint a broader picture of the confusion of that day, the City of Atlanta has nearly 9,000 employees. Many rely on technology to do their jobs and keep the City running.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Suddenly, they were incapacitated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fortunately, our mission-critical services such as fire, police and ambulance were not affected. Neither was our water supply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, some departments and government entities suffered irreparable damage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Atlanta Municipal Court had to cancel and reschedule hearings, suffering a major interruption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our customer-service interface, known as ATL311, was knocked offline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many other applications were impacted or affected, delaying the delivery of city services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As that first day unfolded, it became clear to us that criminals had attacked the City\u2019s computer systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We moved quickly to mitigate the situation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first few hours after the attack were crucial for limiting the damage and determining the next steps forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We notified law enforcement and key partners — our insurance carrier, outside counsel, government partners and the media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We also needed to learn in detail what systems, functions and operations were impacted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That might sound simple, but during an emergency, the process of identifying every compromised system was challenging, especially without the assistance of technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Out of an abundance of caution, we took some systems off-line. We also hired an outside security firm to assist with our response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We soon discovered that the attackers were demanding a ransom payment of $51,000 in Bitcoins to unlock our systems. We refused to pay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The cost of recovery to date has been about $7.2 million and we expect it will go higher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some costs have been reimbursed under our cyber-insurance policies. And additional reimbursements are pending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last November, federal authorities charged two Iranians with the attack and outlined their massive scheme to breach computer networks of local governments, health care systems and other public entities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Atlanta\u2019s cyberattack was not unique.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Digital extortion is now a common occurrence affecting many organizations in the public and private sectors, even hospitals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With cyber threats becoming more hostile and frequent, organizations must understand how to protect themselves against attacks when they do occur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The good news is that the City of Atlanta is rebounding from this attack and sharing its experience with other cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are advising them to understand the business-continuity measures they need to have in place. And to do it now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are adopting a more flexible and hardened infrastructure, using advanced technologies and the Cloud to diversify and minimize our risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are emphasizing the importance of cross-functional response teams, which include federal and state government partners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are in a good place going forward, but no city can do all this effectively without robust partnerships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Through our process, Atlanta has worked with the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, Secret Service and private sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The work we did to prepare for Super Bowl 53 earlier this year was a great example of this collaboration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are staying pro-active, so we can understand and manage this ever-changing landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But we\u2019ve also learned that you can never completely protect a computer network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The City of Atlanta is more prepared and resilient than ever, but local and state governments continue to need your partnership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can help by providing funding to assist cities in preventing, preparing for, and responding to cyberattacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can help by empowering agencies to develop and share best practices with state and local governments:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many small cities lack the resources necessary to develop this kind of safety net.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The federal government should also expand programs that share real-time threat information, which is often critical in avoiding and mitigating threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We should also have federal programs in place to provide cybersecurity disaster-relief funding. This will help offset recovery costs borne locally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lastly, we need your help to ensure the safety and security of the electoral process, as city and state governments administer the elections that are the foundation of our democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are living in a different digital world now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nation-state actors and other foreign adversaries are on the attack. We need a strong federal partner to defend against them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the support and assistance of partners such as the Department of Homeland Security — and this distinguished Committee — all our cities, and<\/em> our country, can be safer by being better prepared.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON D.C. — Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms delivered testimony before a U.S. House committee on cybersecurity, infrastructure protection and innovation. The hearing was entitled \u201cCybersecurity Challenges for State and Local Governments: Assessing\u00a0How the Federal Government Can Help.\u201d During her testimony, Bottoms talked about last year’s cyber attack on Atlanta’s city government, how the city […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"_newspack_byline_active":false,"_newspack_byline":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9906\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}