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The city of New Iberia is the latest governmental victim of online hackers.

According to Mayor Freddie DeCourt, the attack occurred Tuesday night as the city council was meeting.

“We caught it during the council meeting last night,” DeCourt said. “Our IT guy could see things being encrypted as he worked.”

The New Iberia hack comes as the state is still trying to recover from a ransomware attack that has left its computer networks down since last week and the New orleans Police Department fights to get its networks secured. DeCourt said technicians are still trying to determine if this hack is related to those incidents.

“We won’t really be sure until we get everything turned back on,” DeCourt said. “We’ve got some good IT people with the police department, plus our IT guy.”

The city hack is not the first to hit Iberia Parish this year. The Iberia Parish School Board had its network attacked in August, just before school started. As in the New Iberia hack, IT techs were able to identify the attack early and shut down the network to prevent the damage from spreading.

DeCourt said computer experts from the Louisiana National Guard and State Police are also on site to determine the depth and severity of the attack. He expects the city’s network to be down for the next 48 to 72 hours at least.

“We’ve got good people on it,” DeCourt said. “I hope we will be ok. We won’t really be sure until we get everything turned back on.”