Fayetteville, Arkansas grappling with massive cyberattack

Fayetteville, Arkansas, is currently grappling with a suspected cyber incident, leading local authorities to temporarily shut down most digital municipal services.

The city confirmed the cyberattack through a message on its website, although the mayor and city council have not responded to inquiries.

As a proactive measure, online services such as email, online payments, inspection scheduling, and network applications have been taken offline, while emergency services remain unaffected.

Utility bill payments now need to be made in person and only with cash or check – but no one will have their utilities disconnected while the city deals with its network outage. Public meetings, ypically made available online, will not have a virtual attendance option while the city deals with the outage as the city’s Zoom systems have been disabled due to the outage.

The city's Information Technology department is diligently working on resolving the issue, but online services are expected to remain unavailable for several days. The incident has prompted Fayetteville to engage three separate cybersecurity firms to assist with the response.