The Suisun City emergency declared by local officials followed a cyberattack that forced the Northern California municipality to shut down its information technology network, disrupting some communications used by public safety agencies. The incident has placed the California city of roughly 30,000 residents among communities confronting the growing threat of cyberattacks against essential local services.
The Suisun City Council declared a state of emergency Saturday after the attack compromised the city’s computer systems. Officials said the network shutdown was necessary to contain the threat and preserve potential evidence for a federal investigation into the incident.
Although the Suisun City cyberattack affected communications operations involving both the fire and police departments, city officials said there was no imminent danger to the public. They also emphasized that public safety services continued to operate despite the disruption.
One of the most significant effects involved the handling of emergency communications, including the routing of 911 calls. Suisun City dispatchers began receiving emergency police and fire calls through the Solano County dispatch center as officials worked around the damaged municipal network.
Suisun City Emergency Response Shifts Dispatch Operations
The Suisun City emergency response required officials to temporarily move some communications functions outside the city’s own computer infrastructure. By Sunday morning, online city services and internal municipal operations remained unavailable while cybersecurity specialists investigated the attack.
Those experts were also working to restore the affected systems. The decision to take the network offline was intended not only to stop the cyberattack from spreading but also to protect evidence that could assist federal investigators in determining how the intrusion occurred and who was responsible.
City officials described the attack as apparently the first incident of its kind to affect Suisun City. The municipality is located about 55 miles north of San Francisco and has a population of approximately 30,000.
California City Attack Highlights Broader Cyber Threats
The California city incident also comes amid federal investigations into a separate wave of cyberattacks involving municipal water systems in a dozen states.
Late last month, the FBI, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency warned that cyberattackers had remotely accessed online infrastructure used by water and wastewater systems in at least seven states.
Federal agencies said the hackers believed to be affiliated with Iran were targeting internet-connected industrial controllers with the goal of “to cause disruptive effects within the United States.”
The risks became apparent in Minnesota, where 30 water systems were affected by a cyberattack. Officials reported dramatic declines in water levels before backup systems were activated to prevent further disruption.
While the water-system attacks are separate from the Suisun City cyberattack, the incidents illustrate the expanding range of public infrastructure that can be exposed when essential services depend on connected computer networks.
Suisun City Cyberattack Comes Amid Funding Concerns
The recent attacks have also prompted calls for greater federal support for cybersecurity efforts. Last week, a bipartisan group of lawmakers urged the restoration of federal funding for Department of Homeland Security programs intended to coordinate cybersecurity efforts across multiple states.
The lawmakers’ concerns reflect the increasingly interconnected nature of cyber threats. An attack may occur within one municipality or state, but the technology and infrastructure involved can be linked to broader systems and networks that cross jurisdictional boundaries.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office, in a statement to The Times, said there was no evidence that California water systems were among those targeted in the recent series of attacks. The governor’s office nevertheless argued that cybersecurity efforts conducted independently by individual states are less effective than a coordinated federal approach.
“Cyber threats do not stop at state lines, and no state can defend against them alone,” the governor’s office said.
The statement also pointed to reductions in the federal cybersecurity workforce and cuts affecting critical programs. According to the governor’s office, those changes have weakened partnerships, threat intelligence capabilities and technical assistance intended to protect essential services nationwide.
“Federal cuts to the nation’s cybersecurity workforce and critical programs have weakened the partnerships, threat intelligence and technical support that help protect essential services across the country,” the governor’s office said. “Reducing these capabilities while cyber threats continue to grow leaves every state, and the nation, less prepared for the next attack.”
