The first information about the incident was received by the town hall, according to Himpele, from the Austrian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) on September 9. Access to a vulnerability in the municipal system was reportedly offered for sale on an online forum. Subsequently, the gap was identified and closed in collaboration with the Directorate of State Protection and Intelligence Service (DSN).

An analysis of the events subsequently revealed that the perpetrator(s) gained insight into an internal documentation platform. It is suspected that a special scanning AI was used, which identifies such gaps for a so-called data breach, i.e., to steal confidential content. A phishing attack is currently being ruled out.

Information on training or project documentation was stored on the municipal websites. These were copied. According to Himpele, there was no direct access to the municipal IT. At no time did anyone gain control over systems or user accounts, he assured. In total, 26,000 documents with a volume of nine gigabytes were duplicated.

Included were data from almost 6,000 individuals. Affected were about 2,000 municipal employees, around 2,900 citizens, and more than 800 contractors of the city. Mostly, names or email addresses were identified, in some cases, more sensitive data such as sick leave days or IBAN numbers may have been duplicated.

According to current knowledge, the stolen information has not been published. The city has also not been blackmailed, reported the city’s IT strategist. The attack was reported to the data protection authority, among others. The affected individuals are now being notified. „We can only apologize,“ said Himpele.

He assured that data security is of high importance to the city. To ensure this, there are a multitude of precautions. However, this also means that in the event of a data leak, all measures would be taken immediately, emphasized the city CIO.

(APA/Red.)

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