ALBEMARLE COUNTY, Va. (WVIR) – Since Albemarle County announced it experienced a cyber security incident, there seems to be more questions than answers.
It started with an alert on Thursday, June 12, that the county’s internet was down, followed by the admission that actually, a cyber security incident was ongoing since earlier this week.
Albemarle County has since revealed to 29News the internet was intentionally shut off, at the direction of cybersecurity and IT experts.
29News asked several questions, but Albemarle County said due to the ongoing nature of the incident, it cannot reveal information such as whether taxpayer information had been leaked.
In a statement sent to 29News, a spokesperson with Albemarle County said it was working with cybersecurity experts and state and federal law enforcement to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.
Jack Davidson is a Professor of Computer Science at UVA and cyber security expert who said attacks on local governments typically fit a mold.
“The process now that’s probably happening is they’re trying to figure out, ‘Ok, how was this attack done? Does it match the kind of operational parameters of one of these existing groups that we know about?’” Davidson said.
Davidson is not privy to the details of the Albemarle County incident, but he said people behind these incidents are typically doing it for dollars or data. Attackers might get a hold of critical information and then demand ransom.
Davidson said most people would be surprised by how easy and how frequents these kinds of incidents are, despite declining rates of cyber-attacks.
“These crime syndicates, they will do what we call reconnaissance, so you know it’s dropping names, and looking very legitimate,” Davidson said. “In the digital world, you have to be aware that there are bad actors out there. We have to protect ourselves.”
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