The local real estate industry has been severely hampered by a breach, that caused the Suffolk County government servers to shut down for more than 20 days.
Since September 8, the cyberattack has prevented access to
county websites, servers, and databases, making it impossible to check property
titles or submit records. Consequently, obstructing most of the transactions
from going through.
According to Sheri Winter Parker, a Corcoran broker, confusion
over the situation and when it might end means “my phone is ringing with
nonstop texts and emails.”
According to The Suffolk Times, hacking group BlackCat claims
credit for the Suffolk cyberattacks and demands a ransom payment in order to
restore access to government servers. The BlackCat threat actors state that
they have access to around four terabytes of data including individual
residents, while much of the data is from the clerk.county.suf domain.
Although County officials have resorted to restoring some
records in person, online databases remain inaccessible. Furthermore, County email
addresses are offline too, resulting in a massive disruption for brokers,
lawyers, and title companies, along with buyers and sellers.
According to Michael
Gulotta, founding partner of Gulotta & Gulotta, a Ronkokoma-based law firm,
“Real estate transactions are on hold[...]About 45 percent of our business is
real estate. This has impacted our staff, clients, and affiliates in a major
way.”
Computer experts, on the
other hand, are raising concerns that Palo Alto, the cybersecurity company providing
the front-line firewall of Suffolk’s defense against cyberattacks, is serving
as the main forensic auditor to investigate what happened when the county’s
system was hacked.
Palo Alto and RedLand
(another cybersecurity company) are both responsible to safeguard Suffolk’s
computer system since 2019. Besides, both companies were awarded new contracts in
order to manage the county’s response to the attacks, analyse the breach and help
resolve the issue.
Suffolk is yet to announce
how exactly the threat actors breached its systems. However, the company has
not blamed RedLand or Palo Alto for the attacks.
Since the county is still
repairing damages from the attack, the police department, the Department of
Health Services, and the Traffic and Parking Violations Agency have all taken a
hit.
