Emails bouncing back from government addresses were the first sign something was wrong, residents said.
"If you take out the government internet… it affects everything. You want to do shipping? You've got to get stuff through approvals through customs. It affect airlines. It affects the health system - there isn't one bit of it that's unaffected," said Ms Stein.
No one from the government or the Prime Minister's office has yet returned the BBC's calls.
But AFP news agency and the Vanuatu Daily Post carried a government statement saying its online system had been "compromised" for two days.
There appears to be a financial motivation. Australian newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald reported the attackers had demanded a ransom, which the Vanuatu government refused to pay.
No detail has been disclosed about the value of that extortion bid, or who the hackers are.
It's also unclear how the attack occurred and what protections Vanuatu had in place. Experts have noted the whole system was likely centralized and hosted on the government's own servers, a fundamental security flaw.
The island has already pledged to upgrade its system. In the meantime it's asked neighboring Australia - traditionally its largest aid partner - to help rebuild its network.
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