The software system used by the Alamance County Register of Deeds’ office has been offline since late December but is tentatively estimated to be restored early next week.
While the computer system at the office at 118 West Harden Street is operating “just fine,” the website that allows remote users to access documents online has been down since late last month. The “intranet,” meaning the internal computer system at the Register of Deeds’ office at 118 West Harden Street in Graham, is fully functional, but the website that allows remote users to search for documents online has been down since late December, The Alamance News was told Wednesday.
For the time being, that means customers will need to come to the Register of Deeds’ office in Graham to search for and retrieve documents, staff in the office confirmed for the newspaper Wednesday.
Customers can still record documents electronically, Alamance County Register of Deeds David Barber told The Alamance News late Wednesday. “State and federal authorities are looking into it,” he said. Twenty-five Register of Deeds’ offices, or a quarter of those in the state, are affected, Barber told the newspaper.
The Register of Deeds’ website is hosted by Cott Systems, a data and records management provider that also serves several other North Carolina counties.
Cott Systems, the software provider, was recently hit by two cyberattacks, based on an update posted in the Register of Deeds section on the Alamance County government website. The message, addressed to “all valued Cott customers,” stated that the company is working with two cyber-security firms to “investigate how potentially malicious files got to our infrastructure Christmas Day/night and we continue to work on fully containing them.”
“We were told by the cyber security experts that this particular Christmas Day incident happened to many companies on Sunday [December 25],” the message from Cott Systems stated. “As we continue to investigate, the required steps make it necessary to keep our systems isolated.
“We acknowledge that you will not be able to work and understand the impact that this has on your office,” Cott Systems stated. “We are experiencing the same impact. While we cannot yet provide a timeline for resolution, please know that we are pressing the cyber experts to move as quickly as possible. We will continue to communicate through these updates as more information becomes available. We will alert you immediately when our services are available. At the end of each day, we will give you a status report and let you know if our services will be available the next day.”
For additional updates, visit: www.alamance-nc.com/rod/register-of-deeds-search
