FAYETTEVILLE -- City employees are doing their best to serve residents without the use of online technology following a cybersecurity incident Thursday.
As of Friday afternoon, Information Technology staff and the cybersecurity company the city retains were moving from a containment phase to restoring systems and investigating the cause of the anomaly that prompted the city to shut down its internet, said Keith Macedo, the city's Information Technology director.
It appeared someone had changed several system files about 4 a.m. Thursday. The action decreased the performance of the city's server. City staff shut down online systems as a precautionary measure.
Residents won't be able to communicate to city staff via email or telephone during the outage, Macedo said. City employees can receive email, but were told not to access it as an extra precaution Friday, he said.
Anyone who wishes to reach city employees will need to do so in person or regular mail at City Hall, Macedo said. Police, fire and 911 emergency services are not affected by the outage. The Police Department's nonemergency line at (479) 587-3555 still works, as does an alternate nonemergency line at (479) 575-0258. The address for City Hall is 113 W. Mountain St., Fayetteville, AR 72701.
Customers with a water bill due during the outage will not incur a late fee or shutoff, Macedo said. Payment can still be received via cash or check at City Hall or in the dropoff box outside the building, he said.
Macedo said he was unsure of a timeline on when the systems might be back online.
"It's a very methodical approach with multiple teams going through every scenario," he said.
Email and phone service will be among the first services to be restored, Macedo said.
Public meetings scheduled for next week, such as the Planning Commission on Monday and City Council agenda session on Tuesday, are in flux. The City Clerk's Office is working on a way to update the public calendar, he said.