Harrison County government offices in West Virginia could not perform some services Thursday and Friday after a cybersecurity incident affected county network systems.
The Harrison County Commission said it recently identified a cybersecurity incident affecting certain systems in its network and was taking immediate steps to respond, according to statements reported by WBOY and WV News.
County Administrator Laura Pysz-Laulis said the county engaged outside cybersecurity experts and notified law enforcement. She said the investigation remained active and in its early stages, and officials were still determining the scope and nature of the incident.
The disruption affected regular county services Thursday and Friday, WV News reported. A county public service announcement told residents to call ahead before visiting the courthouse or General Services Building to confirm whether specific services were available. The county’s website also appeared to be offline at the time of writing, though officials had not publicly said whether that was related to the incident.
WBOY reported receiving multiple accounts of residents being turned away while trying to pay taxes Friday. Harrison County Sheriff Robert Matheny told the station the incident was affecting the Harrison County Courthouse and the Sheriff’s Tax Office.
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Pysz-Laulis said some systems may have been taken offline “out of an abundance of caution,” according to WV News. She said the county was not ready to confirm specific details and would share updates as more information became available.
Harrison County, whose county seat is Clarksburg, had an estimated 64,472 residents in 2024, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
West Virginia is not usually a fixture in national cyberattack coverage, but the state has seen a recent run of public-sector disruptions affecting local governments and K-12 operations. Ohio County Schools restored internet service in March after nearly a week offline following evidence of a potential cyberattack, and Huntington officials said in February that they isolated systems after detecting suspicious activity. The Harrison County government disruption also comes about 15 months after Harrison County Schools, in the same county, reported unauthorized access to some computer systems, a temporary districtwide network outage and a later finding that some employee information was likely involved.
Public attribution remains limited in the recent West Virginia cases. Ohio County Schools did not identify a responsible group, and no public claim was reported at the time. Huntington officials also did not name a group, though a later ransomware-tracking entry attributed a public claim to Termite. The 2025 Harrison County Schools incident was later linked in ransomware-tracking sources to SafePay, but no group has been confirmed in the current Harrison County government disruption.
As of the cited public reports, officials had not confirmed ransomware, data theft, a threat actor or a restoration timeline. Residents needing county services were advised to call the relevant office before going in person.
