(CBS DETROIT) – The Wayne County Sheriff’s Office says its systems will be fully functional starting Wednesday after a cyberattack hit provincial government systems on October 2.
“Many of us could have notified the public more quickly,” Sheriff Raphael Washington told media on Tuesday. “But we were busy getting those systems back online.”
Washington went on to say that the government was forced to move from a digital to an analog world to create solutions.
Although the systems were down for nearly two weeks, the jails were unable to transport inmates to court, bonds could not be posted immediately, and family members could not properly interact with inmates.
“All these things were done manually by all the people you see here,” said Robert Dunlap, chief of the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office. “We were doing a physical face-to-face count of every person in the jail.”
Officials could not provide details about who orchestrated the attack or their motives because the investigation is ongoing. They also could not elaborate on which systems were targeted within Wayne County government.
While they said they still need to build new systems from the ground up, they are confident they have created security to prevent future attacks until that is possible.
“There have been substantial changes in our environment since this incident occurred,” said Sgt. Britton Foreman. “I won’t go into that for safety reasons, but there have been a lot of changes.”
“Now we are in a position where those who are scheduled to appear in court tomorrow will appear in court tomorrow,” Washington said. “Because we’ve figured out how to make that happen even while the system is being prepared and brought back online.”
The sheriff’s office recommends that people who have official business at their offices arrive early to allow enough time in case there is a backlog due to the outages.
