Fulton County cyberattack causing government systems shutdown, LockBit claims responsibility
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Fulton County in Georgia, which encompasses parts of Atlanta, is currently experiencing a severe cyberattack. This attack has significantly disrupted various government systems, including court filings, tax processing, and other services. As of now, there's no clear indication of when these systems will be restored to full functionality.
The office of Fulton County's District Attorney, Fani Willis, has been particularly impacted, losing access to phones, internet, and the court system website. Willis is known for indicting Donald Trump in a case related to the 2020 election, but officials have not established any link between this legal action and the cyberattack.
The chairman of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, confirmed that the attack has led to a widespread system outage. The communication, court, and tax systems have been severely affected. Additionally, property tax transactions and the justice system, including services like firearm registry and marriage licenses, have faced limitations. Fulton County's Department of Information Technology is actively working to resolve the issue.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Atlanta is aware of the incident and is coordinating with Fulton County’s IT department, although no specific details about the nature of the cyberattack have been disclosed.
There is currently no available information regarding the specific cause of the attack, the type of data potentially exposed, the number of affected individuals, or the estimated value of the incident.
Update - On 13th of February 2024 the LockBit ransomware group has taken responsibility for a cybersecurity incident affecting Fulton County, announcing the breach by publishing 25 screenshots as evidence of their access to the county's systems. They have threatened to release sensitive data related to citizens' personal information unless a ransom is paid by February 16th. LockBit aims for maximum publicity around this event, threatening to make documents marked as confidential publicly available, specifically targeting documents that include access to state citizens' personal data.
On 16th of February the countdown clock on the LockBit hacking group website about the information stolen from Fulton County servers, reached zero and disappeared without releasing a download link for the data. Despite the "published" status of Fulton County's data on the site, the specific post was removed by 1:15 a.m. The circumstances surrounding the disappearance, such as whether a ransom was paid or if the site was being updated, remain unclear.
