Pennington County Closes Offices Due to Cybersecurity Incident

Pennington County, South Dakota, has closed most public offices following a cybersecurity incident impacting parts of its network. The closures are intended to allow staff to assess the situation and restore affected systems safely. Critical services, including 911 dispatch and the county jail, remain operational. The county auditor's office will be open for in-person absentee ballot voting ahead of the July 28 run-off election. Officials are working with the South Dakota National Guard Cyber Incident Response Team and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to investigate the incident. As of July 5, the full scope of the incident is still being determined, and a public update is expected by late Monday morning. Residents are advised to check official channels for updates and expect delays for non-critical services.

Key Points: • Pennington County offices closed due to a cybersecurity incident affecting network operations. • Critical services like 911 dispatch and jail operations remain functional despite the incident. • County officials are collaborating with state and federal cybersecurity teams to assess the situation.