Cyberattack on Odemira Chamber will affect services in the “next days”

The operation of the municipal services of the Odemira council will be compromised in the coming days, the municipality announced this Sunday, revealing that it was the victim of a computer attack already under investigation by the Judiciary Police.

In a statement published on its website this evening, the municipality announced that the computer attack it was the target of took place on Saturday and “will compromise the normal functioning of municipal services in the coming days”.

“According to the procedure defined in this type of situation, the incident was promptly communicated to the National Cybersecurity Center and a criminal complaint was filed with the Judiciary Police (PJ),” can be read in the statement published on the chamber’s website.

Contacted by the Lusa agency, the mayor of the Municipality of Odemira, Hélder Guerreiro, revealed that the computer attack “reached the servers” of the municipality and “affected all municipal services, generally”.

“Whether or not data of people or entities that interact with the municipality were exposed is something that we have not yet been able to assess at this time”, said the mayor.

The mayor told Lusa that the attack affected “the chamber’s internal and external features”, but the municipality’s website and the council’s pages on social networks were not affected and are working normally.

In addition to filing a criminal complaint with the Judiciary Police and communicating the situation to the National Cybersecurity Center, the incident was also reported to the National Data Protection Commission, said Hélder Guerreiro.

According to the city council statement, since Saturday “diagnosis actions are underway, by the municipal services in collaboration with the aforementioned entities, to understand the extent of the attack”.

“The necessary actions are still being taken to restore, as quickly as possible, the normal functioning of the services”, insisted the municipality, with the mayor adding: “There may be some constraints during the next week, but we are trying to restore services as soon as possible”.

In the communiqué published on the ‘site’, the municipality said it regretted what happened and asked citizens and entities “a better understanding over the next few days”, given the “limited functioning of municipal services”.