Disruptive cyberattack at Texas city prompts push for emergency declaration

Total exposure of information belonging to Texas' City of Mission following a cyberattack against its computer systems has led Mayor Norie Gonzalez Garza to declare a state of local disaster while urging Gov. Greg Abbott to issue a state of emergency declaration, reports The Record, a news site by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.

Data from the Mexico-bordering city at risk of being leveraged to facilitate further compromise include personal and protected health information, civil and criminal records, and all other details kept by the city and its departments, said Garza in a letter to Abbott.

"I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that extraordinary measures must be taken to alleviate the immeasurable and imminent cybersecurity incident," Garza wrote.

Garza's plea comes as the attack was noted by the city government and a local news outlet to have resulted in the takedown of systems and the loss of the city's license plate tracking capabilities, respectively.

Texas has also been subjected to a slew of cyberattacks within the past half year, with separate intrusions impacting the City of McKinney and Matagorda County during the first two months of 2025.