HARRISBURG — Attorney General Dave Sunday announced that substantial progress has been made in restoring the Office of Attorney General to full functionality following the cyber incident earlier this month that knocked servers offline.
The interruption was caused by an outsider encrypting files in an effort to force the office to make a payment to restore operations. No payment has been made. An active investigation is ongoing with other agencies, which limits our ability to comment further on the investigation or response to the incident.
We have been providing regular updates to the public about the incident and we will continue to do so. Those updates will include notifications to individuals if the investigation reveals such notifications are necessary.
The incident caused a temporary interruption in communications. The majority of Office of Attorney General staff now have access to email and are using it to communicate with constituents and stakeholders. Additionally, the main office phone line and the website are online.
Overall, Office of Attorney General staff — approximately 1,200 people stationed at 17 home offices across the Commonwealth — are performing their daily duties, albeit parts of their work is being done via alternate channels and methods.
Our work to restore full operations continues. We are also working to help other agencies avoid a similar scenario.
In response to the interruption, some courts have issued orders providing time extensions on respective criminal and civil cases. Continuances are part of the normal course of business in the courts, requested by either side to allow litigants the ability to be fully ready for court appearances. However, we do not expect — based on what the investigation has revealed so far — that any criminal prosecutions or investigations or civil proceedings will be negatively impacted solely due to the outside interruption.
Attorneys have been going to court and agents have been performing investigative tasks over the past three weeks, including multiple public safety initiatives for which we expect to make public announcements in the near future.
Complaints from Pennsylvanians are being received, and we are in communication with local, state, and federal partner agencies as normal courses of business.
“This situation has certainly tested OAG staff and prompted some modifications to our typical routines — however, we are committed to our duty and mission to protect and represent Pennsylvanians, and are confident that mission is being fulfilled,” Attorney General Sunday said. “You can judge the character of an organization by how it reacts to adversity. I am very proud of our staff who continue to work and find ways to overcome these unexpected hurdles to fulfill our duty to the Commonwealth.”
Again, this will not be our final public update on the matter.
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