Maryland’s Real Property Search system remained offline Monday after state technology officials detected suspicious activity on servers running the public records site and shut it down for investigation. The official site continued to display an emergency maintenance notice Monday.
The Maryland Department of Information Technology, or DoIT, said it detected suspicious activity April 14 on servers running the State Department of Assessments and Taxation’s, or SDAT’s, Real Property Search application. The state took the site offline to contain potential threats and said it will remain unavailable until it is cleared for public use.
The outage affects a tool used by residents, businesses and real estate professionals to look up property records. SDAT says the service provides ownership, value and sales information for roughly 2.5 million real property accounts statewide.
State officials have not described the incident as a cyberattack, disclosed its nature or identified any suspected responsible party. In its April 18 advisory, DoIT said early analysis suggested the affected systems contained only public information already available through the web application and that it did not anticipate a broader cybersecurity risk to the state at this time. No public claims of responsibility had emerged as of publication, and the agency did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
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The state warned users not to rely on third-party sites or unofficial links claiming to provide SDAT property records while the tool is down. People needing records are being directed to local Real Property Assessment offices or SDAT’s contact center while the outage continues. No public restoration timeline has been announced.
State government technology interruptions have affected a range of public-facing systems over the past two years, including a Nevada network security incident that disrupted websites and phone lines, a statewide outage in Washington court systems, and a Georgia court records portal disruption that forced some counties onto paper processes.
SDAT, based in Baltimore, is Maryland’s tax and assessment agency and says it handles real property valuation, business records and tax-related information for state and local jurisdictions.
Officials said the investigation is ongoing. Key unanswered questions include what triggered the shutdown, whether any systems beyond the public-facing property search were affected, and when the site will return.
