Newark 's Service Director David Rhodes said the city 's system has not been hurt by the cyber attack and nothing like that has happened to the city before . Steve Baum , Newark 's safety director , said the city is using the unfortunate incident to educate city employees on best practices for computers . `` We get complacent because everybody uses computers every day and sometimes we just need to be reminded , '' he said . A computer virus discovered late Tuesday caused Licking County government to shut down its computers and phone systems indefinitely to prevent the virus from spreading , protect data and preserve evidence . The FBI and Bureau of Criminal Investigation have been notified . The virus , accompanied by a financial demand Attack.Ransom , is labeled ransomware , which has hit Attack.Ransom several local governments in Ohio and was the subject of a warning from the state auditor last summer . One tip , Baum said , is not to open personal emails on a work computer and do n't open emails or attachments from unknown senders . Baum said in the past city employees have said something if they 've received questionable emails . `` If they see something that seems suspicious about their computer or an email that they got or something like that , but they ’ ve opened it and they notify somebody , we can shut that section down and isolate the problem as quick as possible and minimize the amount of damage that it does , '' he said .