Homeland Security Probes Cyberattack On Rockland County Clerk's Office

NEW CITY, NY — A cyberattack on one of Rockland County's computing vendors has forced county officials to disconnect the servers handling record management for the County Clerk's Office while the FBI and Homeland Security investigate.

Record searches and recordings are unavailable.

On Monday, the Rockland County Clerk’s Office was informed by database software administrator Cott Systems, Inc., that they had detected malware within their infrastructure around Christmas Day. The FBI and the United States Department of Homeland Security confirmed the attack and told county officials that it is the work of a group of criminals who operate worldwide.

"I've been told that the records are all safe and have not been compromised," County Clerk Donna Silberman told Patch. Plus, she said, investigators just finished scanning the whole Clerk's Office network and no malware was found. The software company is now going through its offsite backups to check that records are secure there as well.

"The blessing is the week between Christmas and New Year's we're very slow," she said.

Staffers are doing what work they can, including court filings on paper.

"As far as putting new records on or title searching we're completely at a standstill," she said. "My hands are tied. All my data is there. I've been assured that it's safe, I just can't get to it."

"As we wait to learn more about the extent of this cyber-attack on our vendor, our ITS Department is scanning all computers within the County Clerk’s department and proactively monitoring our systems as a safeguard," County Executive Ed Day said in a statement.

Day said the Rockland County Information and Technology Services Department led by Director Frank Calise regularly upgrades the IT Infrastructure to try to shield the county from breaches like these.

"I want to assure the people of Rockland that we do not take these types of attacks lightly," Day said.

Silberman stressed that she is doing everything possible to quickly and fully restore access.

“Cott Systems has assured us that they will keep us informed on a daily basis as to the status update of their systems and my office is committed to sharing that information with the public as well," Silberman said in a news release about the incident.

She told Patch that while the vendor says the records should be accessible next week, she has heard from other victims of cyberattacks on governments that the restoration process can take longer.

Updates will be provided on the County Clerk’s website.

Learn more about cyberattacks and prevention from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

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