Cyber threat led to system outages for NC government, state IT department says

A cyber threat preceded the system maintenance that caused widespread interruptions late last week in state government computer systems, the state's Department of Information Technology confirmed Monday.

The department said the maintenance came after the department identified the threat.

"Recognizing a specific threat, DIT as part of the Joint Cybersecurity Task Force performed required system maintenance that led to temporary service outages across state agencies," department spokeswoman Nicole Meister said in an email Monday. "Again, these service outages were the result of that DIT maintenance and not the result of or in response to a ransomware attack."

The department, part of Gov. Roy Cooper's administration, has been tight-lipped about the outages, which affected state agencies Thursday and Friday. WRAL News heard Monday from some state employees still working to reset passwords and recover full access.

Cooper declined to give more information when he spoke to reporters Monday during a State Fair visit, characterizing the issue as "required system maintenance."

"It's important to just say that at this point," Cooper said. "Most systems are back up and running now and we look forward to that continuing."

The State Employees Association of North Carolina said it had been in touch with the North Carolina Office of State Human Resources. "They say they are not aware of any sensitive information about state employees having been compromised," SEANC Executive Director Ardis Watkins said in a text message.

An OSHR spokeswoman didn't immediately respond to a WRAL News inquiry on the matter.

The outage also affected Council of State agencies that rely on the Department of Information Technology but don't answer to Cooper because they have their own elected leaders. The heads of several of those agencies told WRAL News Monday that they hadn't been told what went wrong.

"Nothing was revealed," Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey said. "It's been a tough time getting everybody back on, but most of our folks are back on today."

Meister said cyber threats are a constant risk. "North Carolina faces billions of intrusion attempts to the state network and takes daily action to identify and respond to threat intelligence and protect state systems and data," she said. 

"These actions are both noticeable and not," Meister said.