VANCOUVER, Wash. — Some of Clark County's online services were unavailable Monday following an apparent computer breach of some sort. In a news release Sunday evening, the county said it had discovered "suspicious activity" on its countywide network.
The county learned of the problem on Saturday, according to the news release, and its Information Technology department is investigating and working on a solution.
Some parts of the county's website would be down, the county warned Sunday, including the jail roster, the Property Information Center and the Geographic Information Services database. The latter two pages still appeared to be down Monday morning, while the jail roster page was working but didn't appear to show any jail bookings more recent than the end of July.
The issue is also delaying processing of voter registration updates in the county elections office, according to the news release, but the county uses standalone servers for ballot tabulation and scanning, so those processes aren't affected.
The county's election management system and voter registration database are part of the statewide VoteWA system, which is operated by the Washington secretary of state's office and was therefore also not affected, the county said.
The county said further updates would be posted to its website with a link on the homepage, but had not posted any new information as of late Monday morning. The county has not released any further details about the nature of the suspicious activity or whether the incident constitutes a data breach or cyberattack.
As of Tuesday, Clark County said it is working with an "outside forensic consultant," and the city council approved an emergency resolution that "allows the county to expedite any necessary repairs," according to a press release. Some portions of the site remain unavailable.
This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.