The City of Laval says it was the victim of a "targeted" cyberattack after some data was stolen during a breach of its network.
As soon as the city noticed the intrusion Wednesday afternoon, it said it acted quickly to secure its IT service and shut down access to online services for the public. "The City found that a small amount of data was extracted during this malicious activity," the city said in a news release.
A spokesperson for the city told CTV News it appeared the data was retrieved from an email inbox and not a City of Laval database containing confidential information.
Laval police are aware of the situation and are in contact with the city, the spokesperson said.
The city notified the public of the incident Wednesday night, and Mayor Stéphane Boyer held a news conference Thursday afternoon to discuss details of the attack and assure citizens that the situation will be rectified.
The Laval police, fire, water, and library services were not affected by the breach, the city said, adding that an analysis showed that the information that was extracted "does not come from a city database."
"The City is working with a team of experts from its supplier to put in place the necessary measures to preserve the integrity of computer services," the city said in the release.
