The Baxter County Sheriff's Office was notified on Friday, June 16th, by an agency of the Federal government that an overseas hackers' group had managed to access one of the several computer servers at the Sheriff's Office that contains official public records and working documents.  The Federal agency had detected transfers of data taking place between the Sheriff's Office server and an overseas location and alerted us to this activity.

Once the unauthorized access had been discovered, information technology specialists from three separate firms were contacted to begin the process of isolating the server and undertake actions to eliminate malicious viruses or malware that had been deposited on the server by the hackers.  That process is still ongoing.  Some Sheriff's Office databases and programs have been offline since June 16th while the process has been underway to remedy the situation.  New equipment was installed and It is believed that these databases, programs, and files will again be accessible for Sheriff's Office use within the next few days.

While the Sheriff's Office and IT Specialists do not believe that any Sheriff's Office data or records have been altered, modified, or deleted by the hackers, the possibility exists that they were able to obtain personal identifying information on Sheriff's Office employees and potentially other persons. 

The Sheriff's Office will provide identity theft and credit monitoring for the employees of the Sheriff's Office as a precaution. Notification letters will be sent out in the next few days to those other persons who could possibly be affected.

 In addition to new hardware, additional safety and security software and procedures are being installed and implemented. We are using this incident as an opportunity to improve our existing processes and strengthen our cybersecurity measures. This incident is not related to the recent upgrade to our records management software and inmate roster feed.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

Sheriff John Montgomery