Anne Arundel government has made progress in securing systems since cyber incident, officials say
Anne Arundel County leaders say progress is being made in securing the county's systems impacted by last month's cyber incident.
County Executive Steuart Pittman says most services are back online and some county offices continue to operate under temporary manual processes.
"We have made progress internally with securing our systems and I want to thank our Office of Information Technology and our county staff for the hard work they have done to restore and maintain services," Pittman said. "We appreciate the public's patience and understanding as Anne Arundel County continues working to recover from the cyber incident affecting County government IT services."
The county alerted the public of the issue on Saturday, Feb. 22, saying the incident came from an outside source. Cyber specialists warned that full-service restoration could take days.
The county government said the cyber incident impacted public services and government buildings.
County officials have been working with the Anne Arundel County Office of Information Technology, public safety officials, cybersecurity specialists, and each department to conduct a full investigation.
There is no word on who is behind the cyber incident and what specific operations were targeted.
County leaders are not calling it an attack but they say they're limiting how much information they make public because they are assessing the damage and don't want to tip "potential threat actors."
The public can visit aacounty.org/CyberIncident for updates, department operational statuses, and to view a list of alternative payment methods for county-specific bills and fees.
Protection against cyber attacks
Markus Rauschecker, Executive Director of the University of Maryland's Center for Health and Homeland Security, says there has been an uptick in cyber incidents targeting institutions, such as local municipalities and healthcare systems.
"Cyber criminals are smart," Rauschecker said. "They know to go after high-profile targets like local governments and hospitals because these institutions provide critical services and they hold a lot of sensitive information."
Rauschecker told WJZ that preparing for cyber incidents is crucial in its defense.
"Maryland does do a good job of that," Rauschecker said. "The state and the local governments work really well together in terms of preparing for cyber incidents. There's been a lot of planning over the years."
