Maryland Health Department Security Breach Not As Bad As Initially Feared, Hogan Says
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- The cyber attack that targeted the Maryland Department of Health over the weekend isn't as bad as initially feared, Gov. Larry Hogan said Thursday.
The breach took the Department of Health's website offline, forcing the agency to redirect visitors to the state's flagship website while investigators took stock of the situation to understand the extent of the intrusion.
"Our system was compromised, but at this point it appears to be much, much less intrusive and with a much better outcome than we were afraid might be the case," Gov. Hogan said. "We don't believe that any data was sacrificed, and I think they're digging into it and getting into the problem."
The website has since come back online. But for the past few days, the only updates posted on the health department's COVID-19 dashboard have been hospitalization and vaccination data.
Hogan acknowledged the cyber attack has resulted in delayed updates. But he said the data appears to be intact and officials hope to have the website fully operational either Thursday or Friday.
"It hasn't changed any of the data gathering or really put us in any kind of a tough position with respect to the data set in our system," the governor said.
As of Thursday, a message posted on the website said the health department is experiencing a server outage, and that data will be "updated as soon as possible."
Hogan said he pushed for Republicans and President Joe Biden to include cyber security in federal infrastructure legislation, but neither of them listened.
"Luckily, we have been taking some pretty serious actions over the past several years and over the past many months, and we're in a much better position than we would have been," he said.
