A cybersecurity incident disrupted computer systems and phone lines in Darlington County, South Carolina, Wednesday, limiting some government services while 911 and emergency operations remained available.
County officials said certain computer systems were affected and some services were operating at limited capacity, according to WBTW and WMBF. Officials took some systems offline as a precaution and brought in outside cybersecurity specialists and law enforcement.
Officials said staff were working to restore the network as the investigation continued. The county has not identified the full scope of affected systems and services.
The county said emergency services were not interrupted and its 911 communications center continued receiving and dispatching calls.
Regular phone lines remained unavailable Wednesday at two magistrate offices and the county Historical Commission.
Darlington County, home to about 63,000 people, is in northeastern South Carolina’s Pee Dee region, roughly 80 miles northwest of Myrtle Beach.
The disruption follows a June incident in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, where officials isolated parts of the network after detecting questionable activity. That outage disrupted phones, court functions, payments and records access for nearly three weeks before core connectivity returned, but officials have not publicly confirmed a malicious intrusion or cyberattack.
Darlington County has not disclosed how its incident began, whether ransomware was involved or whether county data was accessed. It has not identified a threat actor.
As of Wednesday, the county’s temporary-phone alert remained in effect, and officials had not posted a restoration notice or provided a timetable for full recovery.
