On Wednesday, a ransomware attack hit the City of Dallas, Texas, causing disruptions in its Police Department and City Hall websites and resulting in the cancellation of multiple jury trials.

Authorities indicated that specific IT systems were powered off to stop additional harm from the cyberattack.

According to reports from local media, the City of Dallas’ police communication and IT systems were turned off on Monday morning following a suspected ransomware attack.

This resulted in 911 dispatchers having to manually record received reports instead of using the computer-assisted dispatch system to submit them to officers.

The Dallas County Police Department’s website was also unavailable for a certain period due to the security incident, but it has been restored now.

The problem resulted in 911 call takers having to manually transcribe instructions for the officers on duty, who were limited to using their phones and radios to respond.

CBS News Texas obtained an image of the ransomware note, revealing that the hackers, identified as a group named Royal, assert that they have encrypted vital data belonging to the city.

Furthermore, they have issued a threat to disclose sensitive information on the internet.

“Wednesday morning, the City’s security monitoring tools notified our Security Operations Center (SOC) that a likely ransomware attack had been launched within our environment.

Subsequently, the City has confirmed that a number of servers have been compromised with ransomware, impacting several functional areas, including the Dallas Police Department Website”

The City of Dallas has confirmed that the disruption was caused by a ransomware attack.

Additionally, BleepingComputer has verified that the City’s court system has canceled all jury trials and jury duty from May 2nd to today, as their IT systems are currently inoperable.

Kristin Lowman, a spokesperson for the Dallas Police Department, informed The Dallas Morning News that the department’s website was inaccessible due to a city-wide outage.

Jason Evans, a representative from Dallas Fire-Rescue, stated that the incident is suspected to have caused issues with the computer-assisted dispatch system, which aids first responders in reacting to emergency calls.