Washington County government back online after security breach

WASHINGTON COUNTY, Pa. — Washington County is back online after working with their computer systems completely shut down because of a data breach.

So far, cell phones are back on and email is working.

>> Washington County government targeted by hackers

Some software is still down while leaders wait for it to be checked for malware.

Leaders told Channel 11′s Cara Sapida that they’ve come a long way from being forced to use a pen and paper, but they aren’t out of the woods yet.

“It’s been a process, we are almost full operational at this point, it’s going to be a few days,” County Commissioner Nick Sherman said.

Sherman said Homeland Security and the FBI are still working on the criminal side of the cyber attack.

County IT workers are helping individual employees get back online in the meantime.

“Our biggest issue post-COVID, a lot of people had computers working remote, they had a laptop computer, we are in the process of bringing those in, scrubbing them, checking for viruses, and then putting appropriate software back on,” Sherman said.

County workers received a text telling them to be vigilant.

County employees we spoke to who couldn’t go on camera tell us they have concerns over compromised data and questions about the possibility of a ransomware attack, but county leaders say that info can only come from Homeland Security. If any person’s data is compromised, they will be in touch.

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