The Georgia Secretary of State’s Office has sequestered a Fulton County election office from the state’s voter registration system after a cyberattack hit the county government over the weekend, the secretary’s office confirmed Friday.
The office said in a statement to NBC News that its information technology division has locked down the county’s interface with the voter registration information “as a precaution.”
“Fulton County’s issues will not affect the upcoming presidential preference primary on March 12,” the statement said.
The cyberattack, which struck the county over the weekend and affected its phones, courts and tax systems, did not appear to be tied to the state’s upcoming election, according to a Fulton County spokesperson, but officials opted to isolate the systems as a safety measure.
“As soon as Fulton County became aware of unauthorized activity that has temporarily affected certain systems, it immediately took steps to protect its network and reported the matter to law enforcement,” the spokesperson, Jessica Corbitt-Dominguez, said in a statement.
She said the county is working with a cybersecurity firm to investigate what happened and bring systems back online.
“There is no indication that this event is related to the election process. In an abundance of caution, Fulton County and the Secretary of State’s respective technology systems were isolated from one another as part of the response efforts,” Corbitt-Dominguez said. “We are working with our team to securely re-connect these systems as preparations for upcoming elections continue.”
The voter registration deadline for the primary is Feb. 12, and early in-person voting is set to begin a week later.
The ongoing effort to restore the systems comes days after Fulton County Board of Commissioners Chairman Robb Pitts said on Monday that the outage “was a result of a cybersecurity incident” and that the county was uncertain when systems would be restored.
The county said in a news release Sunday that while most county offices remained open, certain transactions would be limited, and that its information technology department was addressing the outage.
A spokesperson for the Fulton County district attorney’s office said this week that material related to its case against former President Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants over alleged efforts to overturn 2020 presidential election results in the state was unaffected by the hack. Trump has pleaded not guilty.
