Catawba County’s government website was restored Sept. 22, 2025, after being unavailable for several days. The county, based in Newton, North Carolina, had displayed a maintenance banner to visitors while key pages—including the sheriff’s office—returned 404 errors. Officials did not immediately give a cause for the downtime.
As of Oct. 23, the site remains online. On Oct. 14, ransomware trackers observed the Qilin group listing “Catawba County Government” on its data-leak site. The county has not tied the September disruption to a cyberattack, and there has been no technical confirmation of a compromise.
Qilin, a double-extortion operation, has previously hit public-sector and health organizations, including a 2024 attack on Synnovis that disrupted National Health Service hospital services in London. North Carolina law bars state and local public entities from paying ransoms, a factor that can shape response options for counties such as Catawba.
