Jefferson County Clerk Bobbie Holsclaw is praising the work of fellow county clerks who processed her office’s paperwork and assisted customers during a weeklong shutdown due to a cybersecurity breach.
“The Jefferson County Clerk’s Office would like to express gratitude to county clerks across the Commonwealth who offered assistance during the cyberattack while we collaborated with a cybersecurity company to restore and secure our networks,” Holsclaw said. “Despite the enormous challenge we faced, the County Clerk community rallied together, showcasing the resilience and unity of Kentuckians.”
On Monday, July 22, Holsclaw’s office announced that a network outage would force all of the eight Jefferson County Clerk locations to be closed the following day.
By Tuesday morning, it became clear that the cyberattack had affected all of the clerk’s data servers. Staff were unable to process motor vehicle registrations, take land recordings, issue marriage licenses or complete any other work.
Jefferson County had already been dealing with a backlog of vehicle work when the cyberattack occurred. Two branches were temporarily closed earlier in July to allow staff to catch up on processing title work from auto dealerships.
“I’m proud of the Kentucky County Clerks Association and counties surrounding Jefferson County and even counties as far as Pike down as far as Cumberland County that reached out that wanted to help in their time of need,” said Grant County Clerk and Kentucky County Clerks Association President Tabatha Clemons.
While testifying before the Interim Joint Committee on Local Government this week, Clemons commended the work of county clerks who opened their doors and offered assistance.
Counties surrounding Jefferson were able to serve their customers and help Jefferson County employees process some work. The Franklin County Clerk’s office was able to process 3,000 web renewals from Jefferson County for vehicle registrations.
In Hardin County, temporary workstations were set up at the Radcliffe office for Jefferson employees.
“The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet and KAVIS team moved mountains last week to make things happen. They had 18 workstations at the transportation cabinet that were up and running for dealer work to be processed from Jefferson County employees,” Clemons added.
All Jefferson County clerk branches were able to open on July 29, one week after the cyberattack. However, some services remain unavailable as the clerk’s office continues to recover from the breach.
