Suffolk Property Tax Grievance Refunds Backlogged Since Cyberattack: Report

HAUPPAUGE, NY — Tens of million of dollars in refund payments to people who successfully grieve their property-tax assessments has been backlogged since the cyberattack in Suffolk County, Newsday reported.

Officials told the outlet the Small Claims Assessment Review system and Article 7 commercial tax-grievance reviews have been affected, and partially caused by the loss of the county comptroller’s financial management computer system due to the cyberattack.

Refund payments for overpayments were backlogged before the cyberattack and typically ran between $15 million to $20 million monthly, according to a person familiar with the system, a person familiar with the system told the outlet.

The Legislature’s Ways and Means Committee is expected to discuss immediately migrating the comptroller's system away from the county's servers to a cloud-based service, the outlet reported.

Patch has reached out to County Executive Steve Bellone's office for comment.

To read more in Newsday, click here:

The county's web-based applications were attacked Sept. 8, forcing officials to take down some of its services, including web pages and email, while they undertook an investigation. The attack has since been deemed a ransomware attack.

County officials have never indicated what demands have been made.

A cybercriminal gang named "BlackCat" has alleged responsibility, according to posts on the dark web.

County officials have previously said that the hackers responsible for the cyberattack had either accessed or acquired residents' personal information and they advised vigilant credit monitoring.

Last week, officials announced that the personal information of about 470,000 people who received traffic tickets might have been compromised, as well as the availability of free credit monitoring services.

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