PITTSBORO — Chatham officials say the “cyber incident” which affected the county government’s network on Oct. 28 is still under investigation.
“Chatham County’s Management and Information Systems (MIS) Department, along with federal, state, and local partners continue working to restore the affected systems,” said County Manager Dan LaMontagne. “A timeline has not been established for full service restoration; however we continue to make progress in our ability to communicate with the public.”
In an update provided Tuesday afternoon, LaMontage said:
• “Many Chatham County office phones are operating again, and we are working to get all phones back online; however, the voicemail system is still being repaired and expected to be restored in the coming days.
Chatham County will soon move to a .gov email domain for county employee email addresses. As we make the move to the .gov domain, emails sent to the previous .org domain will continue to be forwarded for a period of time.”
More information will be forthcoming, he said. In addition:
• Alternative contact methods have been established, such as temporary email addresses and phone numbers for the public to reach county staff.
• A new web page has been created at chathamnc.org/cyberincident which includes a central directory for departments’ contact information as well as Frequently Asked Questions. More specific details can be found under each department’s individual web page. The cyber incident web page is also available en Español at chathamnc.org/incidenteciber.
The community is encouraged to monitor chathamnc.org, particularly the web pages mentioned above, and the county’s social media channels (Facebook, Twitter and Nextdoor) for updates.
“Updates on the restoration of services/systems will continue to be provided,” he said. “We appreciate the community’s continued and support and patience as we continue to work through this situation.”
County officials would not confirm a report that the FBI was involved in the investigation of the incident, nor address questions about whether that incident involved a request for a ransom or a payment of any kind.