The website of the Ohio Auditor of State remained offline on Tuesday, October 27, after the office took its web server down following a cyberattack on October 25 that Auditor Keith Faber blamed on overseas cybercriminals and possible foreign state actors, according to The Columbus Dispatch.
Faber said in an October 27 statement reported by The Columbus Dispatch that the office detected and quarantined the threat immediately, then took its web server and online accounts offline as a precaution. State and federal law enforcement are investigating the attack, the Dispatch reported.
The attack was not a ransomware attack, Faber told The Columbus Dispatch, though he did not specify what kind of attack it was. The office did not lose any data, he said, because staff back up files carefully, and the office does not believe the financial information of Ohioans or of the government agencies it audits is at risk.
Payments were not part of what was exposed, according to the Dispatch’s reporting of Faber’s statement, because payments run through a separate government portal and that data was not stored on the office’s web server. The Auditor of State’s office audits public offices across Ohio, from state agencies to schools, townships and local governments.
"On a near-daily basis, we see reports of private and public entities targeted by criminals," Faber said in the statement reported by The Columbus Dispatch. "The measure of an office is not whether it is subject to such an attack but rather how it responds to these very common threats."
For Ohioans and local officials who use the auditor’s site, the practical effect is disruption rather than lost data. Audit clients may have trouble with online payments while the site is down, Faber told The Columbus Dispatch, and the office is building a temporary web platform while asking for patience until the permanent server returns.
The office said it is cooperating with law enforcement and working to protect its data and determine the full extent of the attack, according to The Columbus Dispatch. The auditor’s website was still offline as of early afternoon on October 27, the Dispatch reported.
Photo: Carl Lende, CC BY