NEWARK, OH (WCMH) – No phones, no computers. Licking County’s computer system has been infected with a virus, but the county and its 911 call center are still operating.

A computer virus forced the county to take services offline, while they work with the FBI and state agencies to get it fixed and find out who planted it.

“You lose your computers, the world changes a little bit,” said Licking County commissioner Tim Bubb. “This is a criminal activity. The people of Licking County and the people that work in these buildings, they were attacked by a criminal somewhere who created a ransomware that’s designed to shake you down for money.”

He said the virus has been a major inconvenience, but county services haven’t missed a beat. The 911 Call Center is currently operating in manual mode.

“Because they’re working manually, they have made the staff a little more robust,” said Bubb.

He said every emergency call has been answered and responded to, using paper, dry erase boards and dispatching first responders with radios.

“We’re getting it done and the people of Licking County, we believe, are protected as they always are with 911,” said Bubb.

He said they don’t believe there’s been a data-breach, but their files have been locked and held for ransom.

“There’s a ransom note and I’m not going to disclose what was asked,” said Bubb. “Our goal is also to preserve evidence. If there’s anyway we can find out, especially if this is domestic, then we can bring these people to justice or learn what happened so that we can avoid another county like Franklin or any others from seeing this problem.”

The county doesn’t plan on paying the criminal behind it; instead, they’re working around the clock to get it fixed.

“We are doing business. As an example, the Board of Elections right around the corner, they met today’s filing deadline. They were conducting business with paper transactions. The courts were in business,” said Bubb. “So, we didn’t shut down, but it’s unfortunate we’re not operating nearly as efficiently as we normally would.”

He said they hope to be back to normal by early next week. People needing to do business with the county are welcome to go to the county administration building or courthouse.

“The staffs are there. They will conduct business with you as much as they can,” said Bubb.