Alabama government sites hit by cyber attacks

A cyberattack targeting multiple Alabama government agencies' websites caused intermittent disruptions on Wednesday 13th of March 2024.

The incident was caused by a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack and prompted state officials and their vendors to implement defensive measures. In a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) attackers overwhelm websites with fake traffic to render them inaccessible. Despite the disruptions caused, these types of attacks are not considered sophisticated; they are, however, effective in creating temporary service outages.

According to Jeremy Ward, a spokesperson for Alabama’s Office of Information Technology, the attack did not result in any government network breaches or data theft.

This incident coincided with separate network issues in Birmingham, Alabama's largest city, affecting licensing, taxing, and permitting transactions. The cause of Birmingham's network disruptions remains undisclosed. The network issues have also impacted police operations, hindering the ability to check for stolen vehicles or outstanding warrants.

A group identifying itself as Anonymous Sudan claimed responsibility for the DDoS attack on Alabama government websites. Despite claiming to highlight the situation in Sudan, the rationale for targeting Alabama remains unclear.