FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) — UPDATE: Police and Fire technology are “mostly” back to normal but laptops in police cars and fire vehicles are still not fully operational, according to Fayetteville Information Technology Director Keith Macedo.

Macedo said that HR, payroll, and online utility payment services are all back online and he expects development services (permitting, codes department, etc.) to be back online on June 21.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) — UPDATE: Twenty-four hours later online and web-based municipal services are still shut down at the City of Fayetteville due to a “suspected cyber incident,” according to a news release.

Keith Macedo with the City of Fayetteville’s IT Department says they’ve noticed several files at the city have been modified.

“We took actions fairly quickly to start proactively turning off all of our systems, not just the ones that we saw that had some modified files,” Macedo said.

Macedo says they immediately shut down the city’s emails, online payments, and network applications and called in extra hands for help.

“We reached out to a regional cybersecurity expert company that we’ve worked with in the past to help with the situation and then we’ve also reached out to cyber security insurance provider that we’ve been in contract with for about six or seven years,” Macedo said.

Although some files have been touched, Macedo says he doesn’t suspect this cyber incident to be a safety concern to the public.

“The city of Fayetteville utilizes a third-party payment gateway for online transactions so we do not store credit card information on our systems,” Macedo said.

The city of Fayetteville reiterates that police, fire, and 911 emergency services are not affected by the suspected cyber incident.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) — The City of Fayetteville took its web-based municipal service offline after a “suspected cyber incident,” according to a news release.

Email, online payments, inspection scheduling, and network applications have been taken down as a proactive measure.

According to Sarah Moore with Fayetteville City Council, the breach occurred this morning and since then the entire internet in and out has been pulled down.

Moore says Fayetteville’s IT department was notified and has been working diligently to solve this issue.

“There are several teams working on things forensically to try to, you know, determine exactly how that occurred, but also to make sure that we get all of our data that’s been backed up to be able to restore, you know, things and so we can get back into good working order,” Moore said.

Walter Szablowski with Eracent Software an expert on Cyber Security says companies and governments are being targeted more for hacks because it’s easy for hackers to make money.

“On one side, you’re fighting to defend yourself, and on the other side, they’re doing it to make money,” Szablowski said.

In the release by the city it says, police, fire, and 911 emergency services are not affected by the incident.

People who are not able to reach the Fayetteville PD’s number can call their alternative non-emergency number at 479-575-0258.

“The City’s Information Technology department has engaged all available resources and is working on the issue. Online services are anticipated to remain unavailable for several days, at minimum,” the release said.