Cyber Attack On Georgia's State Government

Uploaded on 2024-02-01 in GOVERNMENT-Local, FREE TO VIEW

A disruptive cyber attack hit all the departments across Fulton County, Georgia, including those of the District Attorney who is prosecuting Trump and numerous co-defendants accused of election interference.

The local government has experienced and IT outage currently affecting multiple systems. All desktop phones, intranet and devices using county servers are down for all departments, including District Attorney Fani Willis' office, said a county official.

Fulton County employees received an email notification about the outage and the County Board of Commissioners Chairman confirmed at a news briefing that the outage, "was a result of a cyber security incident" and that law enforcement was investigating. “We do not yet have a specific time frame for when these systems will be restored, but we ask for your patience during this response,” Robert Pitts said. He added that officials were not aware of any transfer of sensitive information about citizens or employees at the time.

County officials were working to restore normal operations after the attack knocked the court, tax, firearms, and marriage-license systems offline, with no specific time frame avaialsble for when those systems might be restored.

The case involving Trump and his co-defendants has several imminent deadlines for filings, including one for District Attorney Willis, who is expected to respond to allegations that she had an improper relationship with the special prosecutor involved in the election case. Four of the initial co-defendants have pleaded guilty, while Trump and the others have pleaded not guilty.

A spokesperson for the FBI's Atlanta field office said that the agency has “been in contact” with the county about the incident. “While we cannot comment on any specific incidents, the FBI routinely advises the public and private sectors about cyber threats in order to help them guard against the actions of cyber criminals".

A spokesperson for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said it was not investigating the matter and that, so far, there is nothing to suggest that the cyber attack was politically motivated or connected to the case prosecuting the former president.

Fulton County: Bloomberg: NBC: Independent: Bloomberg Law: The Hill:

Image: Rogier Hoekstra

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