Henry County spends $650K to restore its computer network affected in a data breach

• The ransomware attack had occurred in July 2019.
• The officials were forced to pull out typewriters and switch to paper forms.

Henry County, Georgia, was forced to pull out typewriters and switch to paper forms after it’s computer network was affected in a ransomware attack that occurred in July 2019.

This tireless manual process appeared to have extended for the next couple of weeks until the affected systems were restored.

What is the cost of restoring systems?

According to figures provided by the south metro Atlanta community and reported by Govtech, the county has spent around $650,000 in the last five months to recover completely from the attack.

The amount has been spent to get its system fully operational, with a majority of the money - $578,000 - going to consultants, and computer security companies for server installation, compliance work, travel expenses, and other activities.

A preview of the attack

Henry county was attacked in the early morning of July 17. Due to this, the county had immediately shut down its entire system to protect taxpayer information.

For the next three weeks, the county resumed its work using papers for filing services such as building permits and business licenses. The hack has also forced the county workers to use personal emails and made it difficult to access court records

Bottom line

The county’s expense list has been divided into two halves. ‘phase 1’ focuses on bringing the system back. Meanwhile, another outstanding balance of $78,000 is listed as part of ‘Phase 2’.

The attack on Henry county is one of many attacks that have hit metro Atlanta over the past fee years.