Jackson County officials ask customers for patience while dealing with ransomware attack

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - More Jackson County offices are closed as the county continues to recover from Tuesday’s ransomware attack.

Officials say they are making progress but were forced to close the assessment, collection, and recorder of deeds offices.

Troy Schulte is asking the public for patience, saying offices will likely be down for another two days.

“We are making good progress on the restoration efforts,” Schulte said. “We are going to be more than cautions, making sure we’ve got all vestiges of the software out of the system.

Schulte said that right now, IT engineers are diligently scrubbing through all the computers.

“What we have seen other people, who have had this type of an event happen before, is they bring the system back too soon, and they reinfect themselves, and the system is brought back down for a while,” Schulte said.

Previous Coverage: Jackson Co. ransomware attack forces new, temporary closures

Thankfully, Schulte said no personal data was leaked.

“There have been no data breaches, no private or confidential taxpayer data released,” Schulte said. “We have a lot of systems and a lot of computers, and they’re all networked. We have to make sure that every possible point of entry into the system is fully resurged and clean.”

In the meantime, residents like Janna Lamont are frustrated.

“It’s putting me behind,” Lamont said.

Lamont came to the Historic Truman Courthouse to pay her taxes. But instead, she was forced to get back into her car.

“The taxes are due, and I need to get all of that done,” Lamont said. “It might cause me some problems along the way.”

Schulte said they plan to give some grace to residents like Lamont.

“The personal property tax declaration deadline was at the end of this month; we will extend it another month,” Schulte said. “We are looking at waiving penalties and interest. If you haven’t paid your taxes by December, but you’re going to pay them in April, we will waive penalties and interest for the month of April.”

Courthouse hours will also be extended when they re-open. As for the future, Schulte said they’re always looking for ways to increase their cyber security.

“I think we did the best we could,” Schulte said. “It’s one of those things that governments and private sectors are constantly having to spend more resources on this.”

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