BY MAIRE O’NEILL
maire@losalamosreporter.com

Rio Arriba County discovered Tuesday that it was the victim of a ransomware cyber attack which resulted in a significant number of the County’s network servers, electronic files and databases have been encrypted and can’t be accessed, reviewed or edited.

County Commission Chair Leo Jaramillo told the Los Alamos Report Wednesday that the FBI is investigating the attack and the County’s insurance provider has assigned forensic investigators and other Information Technology experts to the case. The attack will prevent the County from performing some business until the matter is resolved.

Meanwhile, the County is taking steps to put in place methods to conduct public business to have as little interruption as possible while the extent and source of the attack is being sought.  The attack also affected the County’s back-up servers. The County now has to determine which files and devices are infected and/or encrypted.

At this time, County officials say the attack will not affect the June 2 Primary Elections as the County’s voting machines are stand-alone and not connected to the network. The County Clerk’s office and the Secretary of State’s Office are collaborating on a system to transfer voting data that will bypass and not interact with the County’s network.