Seminole County Clerk of Court systems targeted by cyberattack

Hackers getting into the Seminole County Clerk of Courts website, wreaking havoc and stealing information. Now that site is shut down, meaning you can't pay a ticket or do any court business online. Larissa Leone joins us live tonight. So Larissa, county leaders say this could all be linked to a worldwide data breach. Luanne, that's right. And it's not just the website that shut down. Take a look at this sign letting people know that the offices will also be shut down. And they say it's all to protect your data. Court filings, traffic citation payments, and public record searches. Right now, online services for the Seminole County Clerk of Court are frozen. Well, we noticed last night about 5 o'clock that there was intrusion into our system, computer systems. So out of an abundance of caution, we turned off all internet. connections. Clerk Grant Malloy says his cybersecurity team traced the intrusion to a global vulnerability in PHP, an essential web programming language that powers nearly 70% of websites worldwide. Security researchers recently flagged the flaw, warning it could allow attackers to breach sensitive government databases. We knew we were being heavily attacked then. We took some things offline to be safe. We put in additional features for security. Apparently there was one element in there, though, of a Trojan that we're working to remove right now. Security expert Robert Siciliano warns defending against these attacks has become harder as criminals leverage artificial intelligence to scan networks at lightning speed. What AI does is it is essentially. An investigative tool for the actual hacker. In other words, they use artificial intelligence as like a super-powered hacking tool to seek out the various vulnerabilities within a network. Malloy stresses that proactive surveying of their network worked and no personal citizen data has been stolen. There's no compromised data. Everything is good on our side. We just want to make sure we have our systems as secure and locked down as possible before we turn them back open to the public. Well, officials say if you have a traffic ticket due, they won't be putting any penalties or late fees as this goes on. Larissa Leone, Fox 35 News. Larissa, thank you. And if you have a student loan, your information may have been stolen as well. Hackers got into the state's financial aid website, stealing nearly 5 million Floridians' data, including their social security numbers.