Cyberattack knocked out Fulton County, Georgia government systems

Fulton County, Georgia disclosed on January 29, 2024 that a cyberattack over the preceding weekend had taken down a wide range of county government systems. Officials described it as a cybersecurity incident, said they had reported it to law enforcement, and gave no timeline for restoration.

The outage disabled most county office phone lines and hit the justice system hardest. Electronic court filing and online court records were unavailable, detainee processing moved to paper, and the Probate Court could not issue marriage licenses or process firearms permit renewals. Property tax transactions and online property records went offline at the Tax Commissioner's office and the Board of Assessors, and water billing and payments, police report issuance and public library computers were also affected. The 911 system, water service, senior centers and behavioral health services kept running, and courts fell back on manual processes to hold scheduled hearings.

Board of Commissioners chairman Robb Pitts said the county was not aware of any transfer of information about residents or employees, while stressing that the investigation was continuing.

On February 13, 2024 the LockBit ransomware group claimed responsibility on its extortion site, posting 25 screenshots it said showed county systems and stolen data and setting a February 16 deadline to publish. At a briefing on February 20, 2024 Pitts said the attack was a ransomware incident carried out by criminals for financial gain, and that the county did not pay and no one paid on its behalf.

Fulton County was at the time prosecuting a racketeering case against former president Donald Trump. The district attorney's office said material related to that case was held on a separate, highly secure system that was not accessed. Election offices closed temporarily, though officials said equipment testing continued and voting systems were not implicated.