Columbus City Councilmembers said Monday they learned the seriousness of the city’s data breach of personal information just like the rest of us — through a tech-savvy local whistleblower who went to the Columbus news media.
“Trust me, I’m also angry,” said Council President Shannon Hardin. “My family’s personal information and my personal information is floating out there, and unfortunately I had to find that out from the (news) media as well. It’s terrible. You can feel it in your stomach.”
“I think that there have been elements of this that have been moving so quickly that all of us learned from the media,” particularly that personal identifying information was stolen and readable, said Councilmember Nick Bankston, chair of the council committee that oversees technology issues.
In Council’s first media briefing since the July 18 attack was discovered, Bankston said Monday that Mayor Andrew J. Ginther originally told the Council only that “there was some type of incident. That was before we knew that it was a ransomware attack.