St Paul City Declares State of Emergency After Cyberattack

Governor Tim Walz has called in the Minnesota National Guard to help rectify the cybersecurity of the City of St. Paul after it suffered a major attack. City workers discovered “suspicious” activity on its network on Friday, 25 July, declaring a state of emergency and launching an immediate response, which is still ongoing almost a week later.

Authorities said that they do not yet know what the objective of the hackers was or if they’ve uncovered all affected systems. There also seems to be no immediate threat to the public, aside from occasional disruptions to certain online city services, such as WiFi access in city buildings, as well as internal applications, which may affect public bill payments.

Emergency and first responder services continued to operate as normal throughout the week. However, the situation is still described as “unresolved” by city officials.

St. Paul's Chief Information Officer Jaime Wascalus stressed that "We are the victims of a serious crime," and that they will only fully restore some services once they’ve reached “complete confidence in our understanding of the incident."

While the total scope and impact of the attack are still under investigation, its magnitude is severe enough to warrant the attention of the National Guard, the FBI, and two national cybersecurity firms. In a statement to CBS News WCCO, the FBI only said that it is "working with partners and lending our investigative expertise," without adding further comment.

This would not be the first major cyberattack targeting city systems in recent times. Residents of St. Paul will now wait for the results of the investigation to conclude whether it’s a relatively harmless incident or something more serious, like the 2024 Rhysida ransomware attack on the city of Columbus. Or, the 2023 Philadelphia data breach in which criminals breached the city’s email system.