Has Madison County Jail's computer system been hacked? (Huntsville: how much, cost)

[MisterEd51]

Madison County Jail's computer system has been down for about two weeks now. Some of the repercussions are:
* court cases delayed
* Instead of taking 3-4 hours to bail someone out of jail now it takes 24 hours
* no inmates visits can be scheduled

All county officials will admit to is that there is an IT issue. When pressed further they say no comment.

To more and more people it sounds like their computer system has been hacked. If all there was to it then there would lot of finger pointing and meetings being held to solve the problem. Since so much time has gone by and county officials not wanting to talk about it that makes people think that the type of attack was ransomware.

For ransomware there are many considerations:
* Should they even pay it
* Is the amount negotiable?
* How to come up with the money to pay the ransom
* There is no the guarantee that paying the ransom will result in computer data being unlocked
* There is no the guarantee that the same hacker will not try the same thing again at a later date
* Taking too long to decide might mean that the hackers stop responding leaving the computer data still locked

A couple years ago Atlanta's computer system received ransomware by a hacker. The ransom of about $50,000 was not paid. Nobody will admit whether the city simply refused to pay or took too much time causing the hacker to stop responding. In any event Atlanta ended up spending $2.7 million to recover from their ransomware attack.

48 Investigates: Chairman Dale Strong sheds light on jail computer issues
https://www.waff.com/2020/02/18/inve...mputer-issues/

Madison County leadership giving no answers on jail as commissary program is questioned
https://www.waff.com/2020/02/20/coun...is-questioned/

[maillemaker]

It's kind of surprising that it took hackers so long to target incompetent governments for ransomware, and it's kind of funny now that they are doing it.


But I can't help but think these people are tickling a dragon's tail. Governments are not going to tolerate this kind of thing lightly.

[RocketDawg]

Originally Posted by MisterEd51

Madison County Jail's computer system has been down for about two weeks now. Some of the repercussions are:
* court cases delayed
* Instead of taking 3-4 hours to bail someone out of jail now it takes 24 hours
* no inmates visits can be scheduled

All county officials will admit to is that there is an IT issue. When pressed further they say no comment.

To more and more people it sounds like their computer system has been hacked. If all there was to it then there would lot of finger pointing and meetings being held to solve the problem. Since so much time has gone by and county officials not wanting to talk about it that makes people think that the type of attack was ransomware.

For ransomware there are many considerations:
* Should they even pay it
* Is the amount negotiable?
* How to come up with the money to pay the ransom
* There is no the guarantee that paying the ransom will result in computer data being unlocked
* There is no the guarantee that the same hacker will not try the same thing again at a later date
* Taking too long to decide might mean that the hackers stop responding leaving the computer data still locked

A couple years ago Atlanta's computer system received ransomware by a hacker. The ransom of about $50,000 was not paid. Nobody will admit whether the city simply refused to pay or took too much time causing the hacker to stop responding. In any event Atlanta ended up spending $2.7 million to recover from their ransomware attack.

48 Investigates: Chairman Dale Strong sheds light on jail computer issues
https://www.waff.com/2020/02/18/inve...mputer-issues/

Madison County leadership giving no answers on jail as commissary program is questioned
https://www.waff.com/2020/02/20/coun...is-questioned/

Why is a big secret? I see no harm in letting the public know what the issue is.

[MisterEd51]

Originally Posted by RocketDawg

Why is a big secret? I see no harm in letting the public know what the issue is.

As of yesterday nobody has provided any followup information on what really happened to the jail's computer system. If it wasn't hackers it would calm a lot of public ill will if someone would simply state that.

Madison County jail websiteb still not fixed
Posted: Feb 24, 2020 / 09:57 PM CST / Updated: Feb 24, 2020 / 11:28 PM CST
https://whnt.com/news/huntsville./ma...ill-not-fixed/

Some inmates released, but Madison County jail website is still down
Posted: Feb 14, 2020 / 10:27 PM CST / Updated: Feb 14, 2020 / 10:27 PM CST
https://whnt.com/news/huntsville/som...is-still-down/

BTW, I suspect that Madison County Jail was not the only one in Huntsville that has had mysterious computer problems this year. I have heard that a private company in Huntsville was down for a week or two because of computer problems a month ago. I find it suspicious that when some of their computer's came back on line they only did so after having their hard drives replaced. Were they hacked? Nobody has said anything officiously or unofficially to anyone. What is really surprising is that they have kept it secret from both the public and any local news agencies.

[maillemaker]

Why is a big secret? I see no harm in letting the public know what the issue is.

They said in one of the articles above that if they make a big hooplah about it the ransom demand goes up.


I suspect the real reason is elected officials don't want to have to explain to their constituents A) why their IT departments failed and B) How much they will be shelling out in ransom and C) How much it will cost them if they don't pay the ransom.

[MisterEd51]

Madison County Jail IT Issues persist
February 26, 2020 at 9:20 AM CST - Updated February 26 at 9:20 AM
https://www.waff.com/video/2020/02/2...ssues-persist/