ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, Ind. (WNDU) - An Iranian-backed hacker group has claimed to have breached St. Joseph County computer systems.
The allegations came from a group called Handala Hack, which got media attention this week after claiming to have hacked FBI Director Kash Patel’s email .
The group claims to have compromised two terabytes of information, including county employee information, police reports, court paperwork, health reports and death certificates.
County officials say it appears the extent of the hack is minimal.
State officials and the FBI have been made aware of the breach.
An IT official with the county said a cloud-based fax server was hacked. The history of this particular server goes back 20 days.
All services are up and running and no actual files were deleted, the IT official said. There is a possibility some cache files may have been deleted, meaning some saved data on this server could be gone.
There is no word on how many documents were actually hacked, but officials say it is far less than what is being claimed.
St. Joseph County Council President Bryan Tanner released a statement that reads: “St. Joseph County officials are aware of a data breach by an outside entity. That breach appears to be limited to a 3rd party virtual faxing system and was an identified issue earlier this week that has since been resolved. This breach may have exposed sensitive information, and those limited files are being leveraged to exaggerate the extent to which county technology systems have been compromised. After working internally and with the County’s vendors, it currently appears no server or system has been breached other than this 3rd party faxing services.”
A spokesman for the city of South Bend said the governing body has not been affected by any kind of hack or breach.
Stay up to date on local news with WNDU on-air and online. Be sure to download the 16 News Now App and follow our YouTube page as we continue to bring you the latest news coverage.
The full story
This article is one source in a clustered incident — the cluster page carries the summary, timeline and every other outlet covering it.
