THE LATEST: Henry government facing service outages after possible cyber “incident”

Henry County Government on Wednesday lost its connection to the Internet, taking down services such as court records and businesses licences with it.

Credit: JOHN SPINK / AJC

Credit: JOHN SPINK / AJC

Henry County Government on Wednesday lost its connection to the Internet, taking down services such as court records and businesses licences with it.

Henry County Government lost its access to the Internet and most online services early on Wednesday in what officials said could be a cyber attack.

In a post to its Facebook page early Wednesday, the county said it was experiencing technical difficulties that had taken county Internet and email services offline. Public safety like the Sheriff’s Office was not impacted, Henry officials said.

“We apologize for the inconvenience and ask for your patience at this time,” the county said in its post early Wednesday. “We will update periodically on the progress.”

The county’s tech team noticed a possible cyber “incident” around 4 a.m. Wednesday and decided to take down the south metro community’s network to safeguard Henry government information, spokeswoman Melissa Robinson said.

Henry is working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Georgia Technology Authority “to identify the issue and rectify any persistent issues.”

While the county did not have access to the Web, courts were operating though court records were not available. Motor vehicle offices were open for car tag registrations, but property tax services and building permits were offline.

“We have employed all resources to mitigate the issue and are working diligently to rectify the situation,” the county said.