Dallas Central Appraisal District website down after ransomware attack

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – The Dallas Central Appraisal District's website and systems are down after being hit by a ransomware attack.  

On social media, it says on Nov. 8 it became a victim. It's working with an IT vendor and the authorities, who have advised them to not contact the hackers. 

"I have friends that are in real estate that are like it's down, what are we going to do," Dallas County resident Justin Gardner said. 

He wondered what this means for him. 

"The thing that was going through my head when I saw it was is my property value going to go up, is it going to go down?" he said. 

"Playing around with home values and taxes.. the worst that they could do is give inaccurate info for a few days," cyber security expert and TrueFort Chief Strategy Officer Matt Hathaway said. "It's unlikely they could permanently change it."

Hathaway said usually what criminals are looking for in these situations is money. They're targeting organizations and companies they believe are less secure. 

"Especially if they think they are very likely to have information that the public needs because they think it will rush the organization to pay the money and get back online," he said. 

In terms of collecting personal info, "They may be tying their name, address, phone number possibly, but it's unlikely something further than that was compromised and if it is anything more than that, it's required by law that CAD would notify the individuals," Hathaway continued. 

"Once it's back up and running and they say it's safe to go back on, then I'll definitely double check it and make sure that it's the right property value," Gardner said. 

Although the Dallas CAD website is currently down, you can still use the State Comptroller's Property Tax Transparency website to see property ownership and values. 

In:
• Security Hacker
• Dallas
• Dallas County