Update: In a press release, the City of Akron says that as many as 30,000 people were affected by the release of information -- although city spokeswoman Stephanie York says not all had their Social Security numbers posted online. The press release adds, "The exact number of individuals affected is not determinable at this time due to continuing forensic investigations."
Original story:
Deputy Mayor Rick Merolla says on Thursday afternoon, the city's website went down, and hackers broke into internal tax files hosted on a city database. The names, addresses and Social Security numbers of about 8,000 residents were posted online, he says.
The city of Akron emailed residents whose information was leaked. It told them to watch financial records -- and gave them help numbers to call -- to guard against identity theft.
Merolla says the tax files were the only things hackers were able to get into, and that city databases have proven secure against most attempts to break in.
MEROLLA: "We get cyber attacks every day. If you look at our firewall logs, and our intrusion detection system software, you'll see that people try to get in every day. And up until yesterday we had been able to thwart any attempt to get in."
A group called Turkish Ajan took credit for the attack on Twitter. Merolla says he believes this was an automated attack that may have targeted numerous places and just happened to be successful in Akron. He says the FBI is now investigating.
