Update, Nov. 12: Seminole County Clerk of Court and Comptroller Grant Maloy told WKMG News 6 on Thursday that the cyberattack was linked to Russian hackers, though the station said he did not name a group. Maloy said the public access portal itself was not breached and that the attack did not appear to have come through the public website. "As far as somebody looking at our website, there is no danger to that," he told the station. He said he hoped to have official records and court records back online Thursday, and by Thursday evening the notice on the clerk's website listed links to official records and to traffic, civil, criminal, dependency and juvenile court records, with payments for official records still offline. Outside cybersecurity consultants and law enforcement are involved, and the office does not yet have a final report on what information, if any, was viewed or copied, WKMG reported. "If there is some information that is confidential, we'll make sure we notify those people of that," Maloy said. The office is considering CAPTCHAs and other tools to discourage data scrapers, according to the station, and in-person service continues at the Sanford locations.
Online services at the Seminole County Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller's office could stay offline for up to two more weeks as the office rebuilds and reviews its systems after a cyberattack, Clerk Grant Maloy said in a Spectrum News 13 report published Monday night.
Maloy also said the intruders likely saw records. "We know they got into the system. They probably saw records," he told the station, adding that the office is still working out what was accessed and on which servers.
In the days after the intrusion was found on Oct. 28, the clerk's office told WKMG News 6 that it had found no ransomware and no compromised information.
Maloy said the attack has been reported to the FBI and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and that the investigation into how it happened is continuing.
What is still down
Online forms and access to legal documents remain unavailable, according to Spectrum News 13. Maloy said jury duty registration and court records are next in line to come back online. "So we're 100% operational," he said. "The issue's been we're slowly making things available online."
Spectrum News 13 reported that officials said suspensions for people who could not make a payment during the shutdown are being waived until the end of the month.
