After what it calls a complicated hacking attempt, a county in South Carolina struggles to restore its data network.
Hackers sent a Jan. 22 email that allowed them to take over the computers in Georgetown County. They were demanding a bribe to restore the device to the jurisdiction of the county, said Spokeswoman Jackie Broach.
The county did not pay the ransom and has managed to repair email and the network and clean compromised machines over the past month, Broach said in a statement.
The data security specialists employed by the county said there was no evidence that the hackers had stolen tax, jobs or other private details, Broach said.
For around half of Georgetown County’s workforce, email on county accounts is backed up, with technology workers prioritizing addresses used by the media, Broach said.
Authorities prosecute the violation and do not reveal details about the hackers.
Broach said that the cyber security professionals told the county that the attack was complex, breaking into the machine by “something that most individuals would have mistaken for being a legitimate email.”
