By Laura Swanson
All Tillamook County departments are impacted by the cyberattack discovered yesterday morning January 22nd. The county has activated an incident command and designated Emergency Management Director Gordon McCraw as the public information officer. Another public meeting will be held tomorrow January 24th at 8 am at the Tillamook County Courthouse at 201 Laurel Avenue in Commissioners’ Meeting Rooms A & B.
According to Gordon McCraw, “A digital forensics response team has been hired to come in, investigate and work toward getting systems operational. They are expected to arrive tomorrow morning.” Regarding rumors about sensitive data, such as health records, property titles, and personal information being breached, McCraw said, “Data has not been removed from the servers. The malware encrypted the data, which means we can’t access it, but did not remove it.” There has been no “ransom” request.
All county departments have been impacted, including telephones, website, internet and email. “Work-arounds” have included the use of personal cell phones and social media for communications, and “old-school” for records and receipts — pencils and paper.
From the Tillamook County Library Facebook Page:
As you have probably heard, the library has no access to phones or internet or public or staff computers. This means our entire method of operation is changed. The good news: we are open, you can still check out books, and read books in cozy chairs out of the rain. The bad news: we cannot place holds, renew, issue new cards, or do any printing. And we cannot process check ins.
We are accepting books, but they are stacking up. If you are able, please consider keeping your books at home for the duration of this outage. This will help us greatly, and we will backdate everything upon return.
That said, it is heartening to see just how much we are used. We checked out to 89 people yesterday, and we have the stack of paper to prove it!
From Tillamook County Roads – Public Works:
The county computer system is down as well as the phone. We apologize for delay in responding to you. Thank you.
The Tillamook County Health Department and the Department of Community Development are directing patients and customers who can’t get through on their regular, published phone numbers to use alternative phone numbers at this time, provided below.
Tillamook County Health Department is open for business as usual. There is no access to electronic medical records at this time. Please be assured that personal health information is protected. If patients cannot get through on our regular phone numbers please call:
●503-812-3916 for medical and behavioral health clinic scheduling
●503-812-3774 for dental clinic scheduling and services
●503-354-4257 for WIC, public health and environmental health
Department of Community Development is open Mon. to Fri. from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Please visit the office for planning and other department services. Please call:
●503-812-8543 for building, plumbing, mechanical and electrical inspections
●503-812-2431 for sanitation.
Please be patient with county employees as they are doing everything possible to continue to provide services, and developing ways to do business without key tools.
