City Of Tulsa Launches Tool To Detect If Data Was Compromised In Ransomware Attack

The city of Tulsa launched a tool for citizens to check if their information was shared to the dark web following a ransomware attack on the city.

Tuesday, July 13th 2021, 9:38 pm

By: Kristen Weaver

TULSA, Oklahoma -

The city of Tulsa said dozens of people's social security numbers were compromised during a ransomware attack. Now it's launching a way for you to see if your information was leaked.

Tulsa city leaders gave an update Tuesday afternoon on the ransomware attack that crippled the city's systems briefly in May.

The city said anyone who filed a police report online in the past six years needs to go online and check to see if their personal information may be on the dark web, then take action if it is.

The city said more than 18,000 files were leaked to the dark web a few weeks ago, after it was hit by a ransomware attack in April.

Although most only had things like names and addresses, some social security numbers were leaked.

"The team identified 27 instances of social security numbers being put into a free form text field," said Michael Dellinger, City of Tulsa Chief Information Officer.

Dellinger said anyone who filed a police report online from 2015 to May of 2021 may have information on the dark web. To check, he said the city rolled out a lookup tool for citizens.

“If you received a ticket in the field, these records were not released," said Dellinger.

Dellinger said most systems hit by the cyber-attack are back up and running and the city should be fully in service by mid-September. Mayor G.T. Bynum said this could have been much worse.

"A lot of the reason for that is the city council and I invested $400,000 in detection tools and software that allowed our IT team to detect this," said Bynum.

The city said it has identified who’s responsible but is not releasing the group’s name.

Dellinger said an email with a code embedded likely caused the attack, but now the city has even more security in place.

He said they’ll be contacting the people linked to the 27 compromised social security numbers, but urges everyone to take precautions and check their new online tool.

“My staff has been working around the clock and many other departments to help us restore these systems," said Dellinger.

Visit CityOfTulsa.org/Cyber to check your information.