ROCKPORT — The Rockport Town Office reopened Wednesday morning after being closed Tuesday in the wake of an attack by a ransomware virus.

The municipality’s computer servers were infected Friday, according to a statement this week from Town Manager Rick Bates.

“On Friday the 13th the Rockport Town Office was hit with a serious virus that affected our server and our off-site back up. There was no theft of data that occurred, but files were encrypted in an attempt to get us to pay a ransom to get the encryption removed,” Bates said in the statement.

Information technicians worked throughout the weekend to restore the encrypted data. Bates said the town’s information technician was able to rebuild the town office’s servers and recover all of the data from the computers with the exception of data from April 13 because the virus prevented it from being backed up. Information from that date has since been re-entered. No information was stolen.

“I’m not sure what the (ransom) demand said, as it was a file found by out by the IT guy in the server. We did not pay the ransom. There are no leads, as it could be a computer anywhere in the world,” Bates said Thursday.

Bates said that the Rockport Police Department does not have officers trained to investigate such computer crimes. He said an investigation would have been conducted if it was suspected that the virus was sent internally, from someone at the town office.

Bates said no computers at the Rockport Police Department, the Rockport Fire Department, the Rockport Opera House or the Public Works Department were affected by the virus.

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