Passaic County IT systems hacked as officials warn other NJ towns may be targeted

☑️Passaic County officials say a malware attack disrupted county IT systems

☑️The county says that other New Jersey governments may also be affected

☑️Previous cyberattacks have caused weeks of outages and disruptions

PATERSON — Passaic County says its IT systems have been attacked by a malware attack.

On its Facebook page on Wednesday, the county said the attack has also impacted its phone lines but did not disclose what specific systems, such as county records and personal data, were affected. The county said it is not alone in dealing with the current attack.

"We understand that several other local governments in New Jersey have experienced similar incidents. Our team is actively working with federal and state officials to investigate and contain the issue," the county said in its statement.

The state Department of Homeland Security bureau chief Christoher Thorensen told New Jersey 101.5 in an email the office is "actively supporting recovery efforts and working with them to make sure there is no recurrence."

Thorensen would not disclose if any other municipalities or agencies had been affected to "maintain confidentiality."

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Previous cyberattacks have crippled NJ agencies and hospitals

In previous malware attacks, it took New Jersey municipalities, agencies and hospitals some time to regain access.

Somerset County lost access to county email addresses during a 2022 breach.

The Camden County Police Department and the Camden County Prosecutor's Office were hit by separate cyberattacks in March 2023 and were initially locked out of criminal investigative files and day-to-day internal administration functions.

A massive cyber breach of Capital Health's systems in November 2023 led to a two-week outage and the threat to release the stolen data unless a ransom was paid.  A settlement that offered the chance for impacted patients to claim between $100 and $5,000 did not indicate if the ransom was paid.

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