Nearly two weeks after Long Beach disclosed that it had become the victim of a cyber security breach, the City Council is meeting in a special closed session meeting Monday morning to learn more about the potential threat to public services.
The breach came to light on Nov. 15 when City officials said they’d learned a day earlier that Long Beach had been the target of a “cyber security incident.” The city quickly took down its websites and a number of other services as it began to survey how extensive the breach was. City payment portals for utility bills remain down as do a range of other city services.
The City Council declared an emergency over the breach at a Nov. 17 special meeting that allows the city manager broader spending power to contract with outside agencies to help recover city data and determine the extent of the damage to city networks.
The meeting on Monday morning will happen in private, but it could inform council members about what the city has learned over the past two weeks. It’s unclear if there will be a public report out from the closed session meeting after it concludes.
Since the news of the breach, city officials have been guarded with information regarding its response. So far, city officials have declined to say what data may have been compromised and if the breach targeted the personal information of city employees, residents or other contractors that do business with Long Beach.
The city has an insurance policy that covers cyber security breaches and ransomware attacks and the City Council doubled that coverage in 2022 to $4 million. The policy could help the city pay for services to restore any lost data, legal fees and credit monitoring services for anyone whose private data was compromised during the attack.
The City Council is expected to get a full, public update on the cyber security breach during an open session meeting scheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 5.
The city has launched a temporary website where it’s been posting intermittent updates on how city services have been affected by the breach. That link can be found here.
The City Council meeting will take place at 9 a.m. Monday at City Hall. The agenda is available here.