City of St. Joseph, Missouri hit by ransomware attack, exposing police and health department files
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The City of St. Joseph, Missouri, reports a ransomware attack that occurred in June 2025, which crippled city computer systems for an extended period and potentially exposed personal information belonging to approximately 11,000 residents.
The cyberattack forced city staff to rely on emergency measures such as Wi-Fi hotspots and manual processes to maintain essential services.
The city first detected the network issue around 2:30 a.m. on June 9, 2025. The city initially acknowledged via Facebook on Monday, June 9, that some of its services were down or temporarily unavailable due to "network issues," saying later on June 26 it was investigating network security issues and no threat was posed to the public.
The specific types of exposed information have not been fully disclosed by the city, but the breach affected files from:
- Police department records
- Health department files
- Personal information of city residents
Letters will be sent to approximately 11,000 people and will include resources that can be used to protect information and instructions for enrolling in complimentary credit monitoring and identity theft protection services, free of charge.
The attack had lasting impacts on city operations. Some processes remain interrupted, including daily dissemination of arrests, thefts and vandalism reports to media outlets from the St. Joseph Police Department.