Cyberattack shuts down La Porte County (Indiana) government

La Porte County, Ind., was hit with a cyberattack on July 6 that knocked the county government’s systems offline.

Few details on the attack were released, but La Porte County Board of Commissioners President Dr. Vidya Kora told The News Dispatch access to the county’s website and email will be down as officials attempt to deal with the attack. The county IT director shut down the computer system to limit any potential damage, but not before at least half of the county’s servers were impacted. It is expected to take an extended period of time to fully recover from the attack, Kora said.

La Porte officials have cyberinsurance that they expect to cover some of the cost and the county is working with several outside firms, including the incident-response law firm of Mullen Coughlin LLC to get a handle on the situation, The News Dispatch reported.

While Kora did not specifically state that La Porte was hit with ransomware, what he described is similar to what dozens of other municipalities have endured after being hit with ransomware.