City of Columbia Asks SLED to Investigate Cyberattack

The City of Columbia was the victim of a cybersecurity incident discovered on October 20, 2026, which impacted several public-facing services and involved sensitive data within the city’s network. Upon discovering the incident, the city’s Information Technology Department immediately contacted the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) to investigate the incident, assess the full scope, and determine the potential impact. As the ongoing criminal investigation continues, the City of Columbia confirmed it was a victim of a ransomware attack.

Columbia officials says the city is taking this incident extremely seriously and is working methodically with SLED and cybersecurity specialists to contain the attack, identify affected systems, assess the extent of any information that may have been accessed or compromised, and restore impacted services. As part of these efforts, affected applications were taken offline as a precautionary measure to help contain the incident and support the investigation and recovery process.

While some customer-facing applications and online services remain temporarily unavailable as the city works to resolve the incident, the city’s core functions and critical public safety and utility services remain operational. Business continuity measures have been implemented across affected departments to maintain service delivery while recovery efforts continue.

The City of Columbia wants to reassure residents that critical public safety and utility systems remain operational. These include the Columbia Police Department, Columbia-Richland Fire Department, 911 communications, Columbia Water systems, and the Payment Center, including online payment services.

Several public-facing applications and services are also impacted, including MyColaSC and online services related to Animal Services, reservations for Parks and Recreation, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

While MyColaSC is impacted, residents can call 803-545-3300 to report concerns or request assistance with issues typically submitted through the application. These include potholes, fallen trees, park equipment concerns, broken streetlights, and other local service requests.