The city of Akron’s website was able to accept payroll tax payments for Friday’s deadline, but some features of the site will not be restored for months.
And when services are restored, city officials might not announce them for concern about additional hacking.
“What we are trying to do is what you might call ‘security by obscurity,’ ” said Rick Schmahl, chief information officer. “We are almost not wanting to put a bunch of links out there and say this is up and running because every time we say we have a different app up ... it’s almost a challenge to some of these [hackers] like, ‘Oh, let’s see if they got it fixed.’ ”
The tax collection and other functions were disabled May 16 by Turkish hackers who posted a political message and put the personal information of as many as 30,000 residents on a public site. The city offered free credit freezes, although no one has come forward to say they were the victims of identity theft.
Schmahl said several functions remain disabled, including the police anonymous tip line, news releases and community pages. The site’s ability to show police incident reports has been restored.
Schmahl said some residents using old bookmarks or “favorites” on their web browsers might be slowed as they are redirected to pages with new addresses.
The city continues to prepare for a new website, and some restorations will not be ready until that upgrade, which could be months away, Schmahl said.
For example, the procedure for residents to file for income taxes will not be needed until January.
Dave Scott can be reached at 330-996-3577 and davescott@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow Scott on Twitter at Davescottofakro.