A February technology outage shut Town Hall and other offices in Orange, Virginia, for parts of three days, about two weeks before LockBit listed the town on its leak site.
The Town of Orange said in Facebook posts on Feb. 18 and 19 that Town Hall, the Public Works office and Community Development office would be closed because of a “technology outage.” On Feb. 20, the town said those offices had been closed from Wednesday afternoon through Friday at 1 p.m. and that Town Hall had reopened, though it could accept only cash or checks until the outage was fully resolved.
Town officials did not respond to DysruptionHub questions sent Wednesday morning to the town manager, town clerk and an administrative contact seeking comment on whether the February outage stemmed from a cybersecurity incident, whether the LockBit claim is legitimate, what systems were affected and whether any data was compromised.
A post on LockBit’s leak site shows townoforangeva.gov was listed on March 5. The post reflects the ransomware group’s claim, not independent confirmation from the victim, and DysruptionHub found no public notice from the town confirming a cyberattack, ransomware or data theft tied to the February outage. The town’s website is currently online.
The LockBit post came about two weeks after the February outage, placing it within a plausible ransomware-extortion timeline, though any connection between the two remains unconfirmed based on public evidence reviewed so far. The town’s own statements described the disruption only as a technology outage.
The Orange outage comes amid a string of municipal cyber incidents. In March, Martinsville, Virginia, warned a cyberattack could delay city services. Colebrook, New Hampshire, said a cyber incident disrupted clerk, dispatch, DMV and records access. Clayton, North Carolina, limited some online systems after suspicious network activity.
Orange is the seat of Orange County in central Virginia, about 30 miles northeast of Charlottesville, and serves as the county’s business center. It had an estimated population of 5,210 in 2024.
It remains unclear whether town officials will publicly clarify the cause of the outage, whether any data was accessed, and whether the LockBit post reflects a real compromise, a recycled claim or an unrelated listing.
