Security News > 2021 > July > 'Holy Moly!': Inside Texas' Fight Against a Ransomware Hack
Texas communities struggled for days with disruptions to core government services as workers in small cities and towns endured a cascade of frustrations brought on by the sophisticated cyberattack, according to thousands of pages of documents reviewed by The Associated Press and interviews with people involved in the response.
In Borger, a city of fewer than 13,000, early indications were worrisome as the city raced to shut down its computers.
Signs posted on a drive-up window outside City Hall told residents the city couldn't process water bill payments but cutoffs would be delayed.
A lieutenant colonel and senior cybersecurity officer with the Texas Military Department, Sereno began helping deploy Texas National Guard troops to hacked cities, where specialists over the next two weeks helped assess the damage, restore data from backed-up files and retake control of locked systems.
One of the first areas of concern was a small North Texas city where the attack locked the "Human-machine interface" that workers used to control the water supply, forcing them to operate the system manually, Sereno said.
Several in cities that were not hit complained in emails after the attack that they hadn't been told what company the ransomware spread from and didn't have enough information to ensure their systems were safe.