Mecklenburg County websites went dark, but it’s not what you might suspect

Mecklenburg County’s websites were offline Monday morning after a software update went awry, a county spokesman said, but were restored early in the afternoon.

Hackers crippled the county’s computer system late last year, but county spokesman Danny Diehl said the dark screens Monday had a benign cause. “There’s no hack attack,” Diehl said.

The county was working on an upgrade with Microsoft when the sites under www.mecknc.gov shut down, apparently Sunday afternoon, Diehl said Monday morning. Third-party sites the county uses, such as for payment of property taxes, were still working, he said.

County manager Dena Diorio refused to pay the $23,000 in ransom hackers demanded last December to unfreeze the county’s computer systems.

In the county budget adopted in June, commissioners included $5.7 million in security upgrades and 11 new staff positions for the county’s information technology infrastructure.

Bruce Henderson: 704-358-5051; @bhender

This story was originally published October 8, 2018 at 9:48 AM.