Everett City Hall will stay closed Tuesday after city officials discovered a cybersecurity incident that hit the municipality's internal network and technology systems over the weekend. Essential City Hall staff are relocating to the Connolly Senior Center to keep some services running while the Everett Information Technology Department and Everett Police Department work to restore full operations for residents.
The city says it began investigating the incident and working to restore impacted systems on Sunday, September 6, according to Boston.com. Mayor Robert Van Campen said the closure inconveniences residents and asked for their patience, adding that the priority is securing the city's systems and infrastructure while investigators determine the full scope of what happened.
Despite the shutdown at City Hall, most of Everett's day-to-day services are continuing as normal. Everett Public Schools, the Everett Police Department, the Everett Fire Department, Everett Public Works, and Everett's libraries are all set to be open Tuesday, and the city's online bill payment platforms remain operational. City officials say they will post all updates online and expect to determine Tuesday whether City Hall can reopen Wednesday.
A City Still Rebuilding Its Digital Backbone
This is not Everett's first brush with a cyber incident. Back in December 2025, the city notified residents that CodeRED, its emergency alert system, had suffered a nationwide cyberattack that compromised subscriber names, emails, and phone numbers, according to the Everett Independent. That breach prompted the city to drop CodeRED in favor of a new alert system, Everbridge, this past January.
The timing adds pressure on Mayor Van Campen, who won the November 4, 2025 mayoral election after defeating Carlo DeMaria, who had led Everett for 17 years, according to the Commonwealth Beacon. Van Campen campaigned on restoring transparency, accountability, and modernization to City Hall, and he now finds himself managing a live cybersecurity crisis.
Everett's technology infrastructure is now under scrutiny after this week's incident.
Part of a Broader Pattern Across Massachusetts
Everett's shutdown lands the same week as another major disruption in the state: Springfield Public Schools announced it would close all schools Tuesday because of a cyber incident affecting essential networks. Other Massachusetts communities have faced similar disruptions over the past year. In August, the town of Andover endured a four-day cyberattack on its shared municipal and school network that knocked out email and online bill payments just before the school year began, according to DysruptionHub. In November 2025, Attleboro's municipal email and phone lines went down in a cyberattack that forced City Hall onto paper procedures, though public safety dispatch lines stayed online while IT specialists rebuilt administrative servers, per SC Media.
Public safety networks have proven especially resilient elsewhere in the state even when broader systems failed. In April, a cyberattack hit systems in the Pepperell area, though 911 call handling kept functioning, according to NeuraCyb. Affected towns leaned on secondary communications channels while vendors worked to isolate the compromised systems.
State officials have started responding to the pattern with new funding. In June, Governor Maura Healey announced $1 million in awards through the state's first Cybersecurity Remediation Grant Program, aimed at helping local governments and school districts upgrade vulnerable infrastructure, according to Mass.gov. The grants were intended to help local governments and school districts address vulnerabilities identified through state-sponsored efforts.
What Everett May Be Required to Disclose
Whether Everett faces additional legal obligations tied to this week's incident remains an open question, since it is not yet clear whether resident or employee data was compromised.
Everett is a city north of Boston. For now, city officials say the focus remains on securing systems and restoring full operations, with updates to be posted online as the investigation continues.
