A cyberattack on the Ohio Auditor of State's web server has knocked the site offline, raising questions about financial data the office holds for Sharonville, Evendale, Woodlawn, Springdale and Princeton City Schools.
State Auditor Keith Faber said in an Oct. 27 statement that "overseas cybercriminals and potentially foreign state actors" attacked the server on Sunday, Oct. 25, according to the Dayton Daily News. The office took the server and online accounts offline after detecting the intrusion.
Faber said he does not believe personal financial information of Ohioans or financial data of counties, cities, villages and school districts is at risk. Payments to the auditor's office go through a separate state government portal, and that data was not stored on the affected server, according to the Columbus Dispatch.
The attack was not ransomware, Faber said. He did not specify what type of attack it was.
No data was lost because staff maintain backup files, according to the Dispatch. The office's email accounts remain operational, cleveland.com reported.
The auditor's office audits more than 5,900 state and local government entities across Ohio, including villages, townships, cities, counties, library districts and school districts. That means financial records for all four Princeton corridor municipalities and the local school district pass through the office.
Government entities that are audit clients may have problems making online payments while the server is down, Faber said. The office will provide a grace period until further notice.
Faber said his office detected and quarantined the threat using monitoring systems already in place. State and federal law enforcement are investigating.
"The measure of an office is not whether it is subject to such an attack but rather how it responds to these very common threats," Faber said, according to the Dispatch.
The auditor's office plans to create a temporary web platform while work continues on restoring the permanent server, cleveland.com reported. No timeline for full restoration has been announced.
Locally, Evendale Village Council adopted a cybersecurity ordinance in May requiring the village to comply with Ohio Revised Code Section 9.64 (ORC 9.64). That state law requires local governments to establish cybersecurity policies and report incidents to the Auditor of State within 30 days, according to village records.
The cited reports do not say whether local officials were contacted or local payments were affected. Faber said his office will provide updates as the investigation progresses.
