ATLANTA — A cyberattack that hit government systems in Fulton County, Georgia, over the weekend affected the offices of the district attorney who is prosecuting former President Donald Trump on election interference charges, local officials said Monday.
All desktop phones, intranet and devices using county servers are down for all departments, including District Attorney Fani Willis’ office, according to a county official with knowledge of the situation.
County employees received an email notification about the outage on Monday, the official said.
Fulton County Chairman Robb Pitts confirmed during a news briefing Monday afternoon that the outage, which he said impacted the county’s phones, courts and tax systems, “was a result of a cyber security incident,” and that law enforcement was investigating the matter.
“We do not yet have a specific timeframe for when these systems will be restored,” Pitts said.
“At this time, we are not aware of any transfer of sensitive information about citizens or employees but we will continue to look carefully at this issue,” he added.
A spokesperson for Willis’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The case involving Trump and his co-defendants has several upcoming deadlines for filings, including one this week for Willis, who is expected to respond to allegations that she had an improper relationship with the special prosecutor involved in the election case.
Four of the initial co-defendants have pleaded guilty to the charges against them, while Trump and the others have pleaded not guilty.
The county said in a news release Sunday that while most county offices remained open, certain transactions would be limited and its Department of Information Technology was addressing the outage.
A spokesperson for FBI’s Atlanta field office said in a statement Monday that the agency was in contact with the county about the incident.
“While we cannot comment on any specific incidents, the FBI routinely advises the public and private sectors about cyber threats in order to help them guard against the actions of cyber criminals,” said Tony Thomas. “We work with our interagency partners to identify, pursue, and defeat all those who partake in cybercrime.”
A spokesperson for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said the agency was not investigating the matter.
Blayne Alexander reported from Atlanta, Zoë Richards from New York.
Charlie Gile contributed.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
