Cyber Attack Shuts Down County Computer Systems

The Fayette County Judge’s Office released a statement last Thursday about an “incident” within the County government’s computer network.

Sources familiar with the situation told the Record that the County experienced a cyber attack.

The County’s phone system was briefly affected, but it was back up and running last week. The email system for County employees remained nonfunctional as of last week. Fayette County Emergency Management Coordinator Angela Hahn told the Record last Thursday that the “incident” affected most County computer systems with the exception of the Tax Assessor-Collector’s office, which uses a State computer system for vehicle registrations, along with the Fayette County AgriLife office, which uses a separate computer system from Texas A&M University.

“Fayette County has recently become aware of an incident within our computer network,” the statement from the Judge’s Office read. “We are actively investigating the situation and are working diligently to determine the scope of the incident and ensure all systems are safely restored. While we investigate this activity, certain county functions may not be operational. In addition, we have retained experts to assist with our response. Please note that we are committed to satisfying all legal notification obligations and will provide updates as they become available. However, at this time, we do not have any evidence to suggest misuse of any personal information maintained by the County. We appreciate your patience as we investigate this issue.”

Hahn said the County became aware of the incident on Sunday, March 2. Hahn said Kevin Wunderlich, the County’s Information Technology Coordinator, took immediate action.

“He went right away and started doing things to contain it,” Hahn said.

Hahn said the County is working with the Texas Department of Information Resources and the Texas Association of Counties to resolve the problem. She said the email outage was the biggest issue facing the County. Most County operations are able to get by without computer systems, at least temporarily, she said.

Hahn said the County has not yet determined what part of their system was vulnerable. She said the incident remains under investigation.

“If it is some kind of cyber or ransomware attack, it is a criminal investigation,” Hahn said.

Back in January, Matagorda County issued a disaster declaration following a cyberattack that crippled the County’s computer systems. Earlier this month the City of Mission issued a similar disaster declaration after a cyberattack exposed data on that city’s computer systems.