Palermo shuts down all systems to fend off hacker attack

The municipality of Palermo in Southern Italy suffered a massive hacker attack on June 3, which appears to have had a massive impact on a broad range of operations and services to citizens and tourists.

Palermo is the fifth most populous city in Italy with 1.3 million citizens. The area is visited by 2.3 million tourists every year.

Although local IT experts have been trying to restore the systems for the past three days, all services, public websites, and online portals remain offline.

According to local media, the impacted networks include the public video surveillance management, the municipal police operations center, and all of the municipality’s services.

It’s impossible to communicate or request any service that relies on digital systems, and all citizens have to use obsolete fax machines to reach public offices.

Furthermore, tourists cannot access online bookings for tickets to museums and theaters (Massimo Theater) or even confirm their reservations on sports facilities.

Finally, limited traffic zone cards are impossible to acquire, so no regulation occurs, and no fines are issued for relevant violations. Unfortunately, the historical city center requires these passes for entrance, so tourists and local residents are severely impacted.

The other day tnotorious Anonymous hacker collective has hit Russia again by leaking nearly 1TB of data stolen from a leading Russian law company identified as Rustam Kurmaev and Partners (RKP Law).