Cyberattack-related outages reported by New Jersey county

New Jersey's Passaic County, which has almost 600,000 residents, has disclosed that its IT systems and phone lines have been disrupted following a malware intrusion, reports The Record, a news site by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.

Investigation into the incident and containment efforts alongside federal and state authorities are already underway, according to county officials, who referenced multiple other cyber incidents impacting local governments across New Jersey. Such a disclosure, which follows officials' initial reporting of phone outages, comes as cybercriminals have intensified targeting of smaller local governments, with cities in West Virginia, Florida, and Connecticut having already compromised this year.

Multiple major cities across the country have also been subjected to significant ransomware attacks between 2023 and 2025. Attackers have also targeted healthcare providers across the country, including the University of Mississippi Medical Center, which only recently recovered from a ransomware intrusion.