Jackson County in Missouri, United States, reported significant disruptions within its IT systems and has confirmed that a ransomware attack was responsible for the disruptions.
The disturbances have led to the declaration of a state of emergency caused by operational inconsistencies across digital infrastructure, with specific systems rendered inoperative while others remained functional.
The impacted services include tax payments and online property, marriage licenses and inmate searches. Consequently, the Assessment, Collection and Recorder of Deeds offices across all County locations will be likely to be closed until April 5.
Jackson County Executive, Frank White, Jr, wrote in a press release that there is an urgent need to reinstate the county’s core functions to minimize inconvenience for residents and that they are actively exploring every avenue to ensure the residents are not negatively impacted by the closures.
The Kansas City Board of Elections and Jackson County Board of Elections reportedly remained unaffected by the system outage, maintaining continuity in crucial electoral processes.
The law enforcement including the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security has been notified and IT security contractors were enlisted to investigate and address the situation. However, County said that there is no evidence of data compromise so far.
The impact on the county does not include taxpayers’ personal and sensitive financial information as such data is hosted completely outside of the county’s network and is securely managed and stored by a trusted partner, PayIt.
Jackson County is one of 114 counties in Missouri, with a population of approximately 718,000 people living within 616 square miles.
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