Clark County, Washington suspects hacker attack

Certain online services provided by Clark County, Vancouver, Washington were disrupted due to what appears to be a computer security breach. The county issued a report acknowledging the detection of "suspicious activity" on its countywide network.

The county became aware of this issue on Saturday, as mentioned in the news release, and has since initiated an investigation into the matter through its Information Technology department. Efforts are underway to identify the cause and implement a solution to address the situation.

As a result of the security incident, the county cautioned the public that some sections of its website would be temporarily unavailable. These affected areas included the jail roster, the Property Information Center, and the Geographic Information Services database. As of Monday morning, both the Property Information Center and the Geographic Information Services database remained inaccessible, while the jail roster page was operational but seemed to lack any jail booking information beyond July.

The incident has also caused delays in processing updates to voter registration records at the county elections office. However, the county uses standalone servers for ballot tabulation and scanning, and these processes remain unaffected.

The county clarified that its election management system and voter registration database are integrated into the statewide VoteWA system, which is overseen by the Washington secretary of state's office. The statewide system was not impacted by the security incident.

The county has not disclosed specific details regarding the nature of the suspicious activity or whether the incident qualifies as a data breach or cyberattack.