On Sunday last week, a cyber attack crippled the entire computer network of Harvey County disrupting all digital services related to issue of driving licenses, Vehicle tags, and other utilities. On Wednesday the county issued a press statement that no personal info was compromised in the attack and the issue is still under investigation.
A source from the court official said that the entire computer network of Harvey County was disrupted in the early hours of Sunday and was due to a ransomware attack. It said that the incident alleviated further on Monday and additional concerns from the same cyberattack were identified on Tuesday.
FBI has been informed about the attack and the authorities of Harvey County are working with their insurance providers and cybersecurity experts to recover the encrypted information.
Lee Ann Heim, the Harvey County Technology Officer said that his staff has decided to pay any ransom to hackers. And instead will go with a backup plan for data recovery.
Those seeking the services of 911 witnessed almost zero impact on service due to the cyber attack. But some of them said that the lines turned busy from Tuesday, despite the fact that the staff at the county center were free.
Harvey County Sheriff’s office is up and is functioning normally. But the issue of Passport services has been hit badly as the staff could retrieve the pre-segregated data from the database. A spokesperson from the office of the Sheriff said that they are trying their best to put the operations to normalcy by the end of the week and all the pending passport applications will be processed on an emergency note in the first three days of next week.
