Cyberattack leaves Allegheny County District Attorney's Office with limited communication
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- The Allegheny County District Attorney's Office is dealing with a cyberattack.
The attack happened last Thursday and now, days later, it's affecting the way the office is operating. No phone calls can come in or go out because they all go through the office's computer system, and it affects their email system as well.
Somehow, someone or something managed to infiltrate the office's security protocols and target their entire computer system. Last Thursday night, the office was alerted by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI that the cyberthreat had taken place. The servers were instantly shut down.
"Ultimately, they want to remediate that, put it in a certain area, do whatever they need to do to get rid of it, but it's important that they identify what has been affected because the thing is, by keeping it online, they're at high risk," said Jeffrey Seaman, an associate professor of applied computer science at Point Park University.
It's no small thing considering ongoing investigations, work done by detectives, staff members and the court came to a screaming and instant halt.
First Assistant District Attorney Rebecca Spangler said this isn't a total shutdown of the work they do. Things are moving forward. For instance, three homicide trials are ongoing. It's just that anything that goes through their computers, including any worker email, even their central phone system, is all but frozen until investigators can get to the bottom of this attack.
What does this mean to anyone in the public who has to deal with the district attorney's office? A complete bypass has been set up so that the office can still get emails and phone calls, but they will all temporarily go through a specially set up email address and specially set up phone numbers.
If you need to do any business with the DA's office, you can email inquiry@alleghenycountyda.us, where emails will be read one by one and sent off to the necessary parties. For phone calls, the office has set up two temporary phone numbers: 412-915-6914 or 412-879-7548. These calls will be manually answered. There's no voicemail as that went through the central computer. You will speak to a live person on the phone and your request or information will be manually passed on to the necessary parties.
