Lorain County Auditor's Office targeted by 'cyber incident' Tuesday

The Lorain County Auditor's Office was the victim of a "cyber incident" Tuesday that is being investigated by cybersecurity experts. Asked if his office had been "hacked," Auditor Craig Snodgrass said "cyber incident" is the phrase he was given by the professionals handling the response. Snodgrass said the first indication anything was wrong was Tuesday morning when his office got "a message" that alerted them to the incident. A message posted Wednesday on the Auditor's Office website, loraincountyauditor.gov, read: "The Lorain County Auditor's Office is currently experiencing issues with some of our computer systems. This is causing some mapping layers and images to not display properly on this website. We are aware of the problem and are working to correct it." Snodgrass said the county's insurance company and its hired experts also are acting as a liaison with law enforcement. "That all goes through our insurance company," he said. The experts "have a lot of tools we don't have." The physical location of the Auditor's Office, on the second floor of the County Administration Building on Middle Avenue in Elyria, remains open for business, Snodgrass said. A memo went out asking for patience while the incident is investigated and dealt with, but "we're still working," he said. Snodgrass said he's not aware of any danger to private property information. "Pretty much everything we have on here is public record," he said. He said he wasn't aware of any threats to public safety. The Auditor's Office digital information network is separate from other county networks that might contain sensitive data. Snodgrass said the cyber incident proves it is good business to keep county computer networks separate from each other. The county auditor is the county's chief fiscal officer and accountant, property tax assessor and appraiser, payroll manager, handles weights and measures such as at the gas pumps, handles certain licenses and keeps real estate records. It also distributes tax dollars when voters approve levies or tax issues at the ballot box. Several cyberattacks have targeted county offices or vendors in recent years. County Recorder's Office vendor Cott Systems was hit with a cyberattack in 2022 that affected multiple county recorders in Ohio. Recorder Mike Doran's computers went down and online searches were affected while experts responded. Search functions were restored after a week. The FBI and Homeland Security investigated the multistate attack. A malware attack also affected the Recorder's Office in 2019. Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com