LANSING, MI (WLNS) – On Monday the Lansing Board of Water and Light announced that their main customer phone line is back in service.
It’s been a week now since BWL was hit by what the utility called “ransomware.”
The virus infected BWL’s corporate network, which meant bad news for employees, but for customers no personal information was compromised.
The Michigan State Police Computer Crimes Unit says the ransomeware virus is a malicious software that blocks users access to their own computer or computer systems. It also asks the victim for a certain amount of money in order for them to regain access.
Although the utility has experienced smaller problems in the past, BWL General Manager Dick Peffley said, “in my time at the board of 40 years, I’ve never seen anything of this magnitude.”
BWL acted quickly, providing a temporary outage map and a temporary phone line to report and monitor any outages as storms moved in on April 25.
Now a week later, the main customer service line is back to normal. That number is 517-702-6006. BWL made the announcement about the phone line on their Facebook page. If you do need to call BWL, the utility asks for patience as they expect longer wait times.
BWL has also released a “Cyber Incident FAQs” document on their Facebook page. The document addresses questions about what happened, how BWL is handling the incident and personal impact on customers.
In the document, BWL says, “This incident should have no impact on you personally. The incident investigation is ongoing, but there is nothing to indicate that any customer data has been compromised.”
Read the document here: BWL Cyber Incident FAQs
