
Cyberattack forces Georgia county to sever connection to state voter registration system
CNN
Georgia’s Coffee County suffered a cyberattack this month that forced the county to sever its connection to the state’s voter registration system as a precautionary measure, three sources familiar with the matter told CNN.
Georgia’s Coffee County suffered a cyberattack this month that forced the county to sever its connection to the state’s voter registration system as a precautionary measure, three sources familiar with the matter told CNN. Investigators believe the incident was a ransomware attack, in which cybercriminals typically lock computer systems and demand a ransom, the sources said. The federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) informed the county of the incident on April 15, and federal and county officials are trying to determine who carried out the hack, according to the sources. A spokesperson for the office of Georgia’s secretary of state confirmed the cyberattack and the county’s response. The voter registration system, known as GARViS, is a relatively new technology that state officials have touted as a way of ensuring millions of Georgian voters are registered accurately. There was no indication that GARViS was infiltrated by the hackers, and Coffee County’s network connection to GARViS was severed as a precautionary move, the sources said. Coffee County was cut off from GARViS for multiple days, but county officials are now reconnected to the voter registration system via backup laptops and cellular networks that are isolated from the county network that was hacked, a Georgia official familiar with the matter told CNN.

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