55 Counties in Arkansas Offline or Temporarily Closed by Cyberattack

A cyber-attack is causing county offices across the state of Arkansas to go offline or temporarily close. The breach happened the Saturday before the election. There's 55 counties in Arkansas that were impacted by this ransomware attack. Each affected county is using the company Apprentice Information Systems for its online servers.

In Miller County, the county treasure, the county clerk and the county judges offices, are all having their computers swiped clean, and having the system re-loaded. County Treasure Teresa Reed says the firewall protected their system, but all the work stations were compromised. Right now, her office is handwriting everything.

At this time (18 November), county officials do not have a timeframe for when their computers will be back online.

Estimated Cost

Offices offline or temporarily closed for a few weeks up to over a month

Threat Source

Impacts

IT