On Friday the 13th, the Rockport Town Office was hit with a serious virus that affected the municipal server and the town’s off-site back up.

No data theft occurred, said Rockport Town Manager Rick Bates, Tuesday evening, but files were encrypted,  “in an attempt to get us to pay a ransom to get the encryption removed.”

Bates continued: “This attack has affected all aspects of the work we do.  I.T. worked all weekend to restore the encrypted data and  have been working hard to rebuild our network.  

“It appears that we have been successful in rebuilding the network, but we need to take the time Tuesday afternoon and in the morning on Wednesday, to renter transactions from last Friday and tax payments from today (Tuesday), before we start processing any new transactions. In order to do this we need to be closed until 10 a.m. on Wednesday morning.

“We are terribly sorry for any inconvenience.”

ROCKPORT — The information technology crew is at work at the Rockport Town Office this morning trying to resolve computer problems; consequently, the town office is closed until 10 a.m. and those who looked forward to paying their property taxes have to wait.

Tax day is one of the busiest days of the year at the town office, and employees are advising at this point that they will “see how it goes,” this morning. 

There has been no word on why the computer system shut down, but it is apparently across most town departments.