LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo addressed the media Thursday with an update on the state's recovery efforts following the August cyberattack that crippled many state services.
FULL PRESS CONFERENCE | Gov. Lombardo addresses cyberattack recovery in Thursday update
Lombardo began his press conference by stating recovery efforts remain ongoing, and later said any information regarding the active investigation (motive, attacker identity, federal assistance, etc.) cannot be answered at this time.
"Public updates can sometimes trigger more attacks. For that reason, we are moving forward cautiously — giving Nevadans as much information as possible while continuing to protect our systems," Lombardo told media.
Lombardo said the state is "well ahead" of the time frame it would usually take to recover from cyberattacks of this scale.
"To put this in perspective, the typical recovery timeline for an incident of this nature can be to the order of several weeks to months," Lombardo said. "Today, I can report that we are moving well ahead of that projection."
The Department of Motor Vehicles — one of the state's most recognizable and front-facing agencies — are offering essential services in-person, including driver's tests, vehicle registration, vehicle titling, and starting Friday, people can get their licenses in-person, according to Lombardo. You can also go online through the MyDMV portal.
Lombardo maintains that vital social and health services were never affected, such as Medicaid and the Public Employees Benefits Program. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) were also not interrupted.
Top of mind for many Nevadans was the data that was compromised during the attack. Last week, state officials confirmed some data was "exfiltrated" from their network, but there's still been no confirmation if any of this data contained personally identifiable information.
Lombardo offered some insight into what was not stolen during his update, saying that the state's financial information "to the best of their knowledge" was not compromised.
"To the best of our knowledge — repeat — to the best of our knowledge, at this time, the data compromised did not include state financial information," Lombardo said. "No state bank account numbers, treasury funds or state budget payment systems, data, appear to have been a part of the breach. Our core financial systems remain secure and were not accessed by the attackers."
Also not among the compromised data: Records of individuals receiving food stamps or welfare benefits and the DMV databases.
"We have no evidence that driver's license data, vehicle registration information or personal details from DMV records were stolen," Lombardo said.
There is a contingency plan in place if investigators discover Nevadans' personal data was stolen, according to Lombardo. This step-by-step process is also listed on the state's recovery updates hub.
"[The state] will follow Nevada's strict statutes about personal data breaches by notifying any affected individuals promptly and providing resources to help protect them," Lombardo said.
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In last week's press conference, Lombardo stated the complexity of outage involved the various silos interconnecting all the departments in the state network. When asked about a new silo system, Lombardo didn't rule out a future of more compartmentalization, saying the conversation remains "ongoing."
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