CLEARFIELD – A cyberattack infected all of Clearfield County’s servers and 15 percent of its computers over the weekend.
Commissioner John A. Sobel, board chairman, Tony Scotto and Dave Glass issued the following public statement Tuesday:
“Clearfield County recently detected and is responding to malware activity on its computer network. As soon as we learned of this, we began working to investigate to restore operations and determine the effects of the incident.
“We’re also working with nationally-recognized, third-party cybersecurity consultants … at this time, there’s no evidence that our information has been compromised. We will continue to actively monitor the situation.
“All essential services continue, including 911 operations and emergency communications. The safety and security of the public and the county continue to be our top priority.”
Sobel said the county’s IT Director Adam Curry has worked around the clock in response to the cyber incident, and they ask for the public’s patience, as they implement business continuity measures.
“We do expect to have our systems back in the very near future,” he said, with Glass adding that a low number of county computers were infected and only those that were connected to the system at the time.
“We didn’t have to rebuild every single computer,” which is good,” Glass said. “We’re on pace to mostly be back up and running later today, and in other cases, it’s taken weeks.”
When asked by the press if the county was a deliberate target, Glass said that was still under investigation. He said the malware encrypted data on the servers, making it inaccessible but it doesn’t appear anyone else accessed it either.
The county will look into new antivirus and cybersecurity software, Glass said. “You’re always playing defense. We have to defend every time, and they only have to be successful once.”
Sobel said the county will provide updates to the public as its investigation proceeds and more information becomes available.