The government of Licking County in the US has taken many of its computer and telephone systems offline as it tries to tackle a ransomware infection . Ransomware is a type of computer malware that scrambles data and demands a fee Attack.Ransom for it to be restored . Citizens have been told they must visit government offices to do tasks usually completed online or by phone . The county commissioner told local media that he was taking advice from cybersecurity experts and the FBI . Licking County , which is in Ohio , has about 170,000 residents . The local government says it has about 1,000 computers and 12 servers , which have been taken offline making many government websites inaccessible . Many of the county 's public services , including the emergency services , have resorted to working in `` manual mode '' without their computers , to prevent the malware being spread to more devices . Residents are still able to call 911 in an emergency but the process may take longer than usual . `` It 's slower than we 'd like , '' Sean Grady , director of the Licking County Emergency Management Agency , told the Newark Advocate . `` It takes us back 25 years in how we dispatch . We ask more detailed questions . '' County commissioner Tim Bubb said the malware was a `` crime against the people of Licking County '' but added that the government had not been specifically targeted . `` Clearly , it 's designed to make money for somebody . It was just our unlucky day , '' he said . Some variants of ransomware have previously been defeated , with removal instructions now available online . However , security experts warn that in some cases the only way to get data back is by restoring from a back-up . Mr Bubb said he was exploring that option , but did not know how long it would take for computer systems to be back online . `` We 're evaluating our back-ups . We think our back-ups are pretty darn good , '' he said .