New Orleans declares state of emergency following hack

The New Orleans government has declared a state of emergency following a cyber attack on its systems.

The attack began at 5:00 a.m. on Dec. 13, according to Forbes. It was discovered about six hours later, at which point IT teams ordered staff to power off computers and unplug them. By the end of the day, the city had filed for a state of emergency with the Civil District Court of Orleans Parish, per a city tweet.

Ryuk ransomware was later found to be the culprit behind the attack, according to Tech Dator. The ransomware attack follows similar attacks this year on large cities like Atlanta and Baltimore and Dallas.

Just weeks ago, the Louisiana Office of Motor Vehicles suffered a ransomware attack on Nov. 18 that caused the shutdown of offices for a week, according to The Advocate. State employees shut down 5,000 servers to keep the virus in check, but the attack damaged 10 percent of Louisiana’s state government servers.

Nevertheless, state officials lost no data and paid no ransom, The Advocate reports.