Iowa counties’ records inaccessible in wake of suspected cyberattack

A computer system used by some of Iowa’s county recorders — including Linn’s — appears to have been hacked over the holidays and has yet to be restored to full operational status.

Iowa’s county recorders maintain land records, issue marriage licenses and register births and deaths. They also issue titles and liens on boats, snowmobiles and ATVs. The biggest immediate effect of the apparent hack is that the public, as well as the recorders, can’t currently access real estate records in the affected counties.

It’s not clear how many of Iowa’s county recorders are under contact with Cott Systems, which was the victim of a suspected cyberattack shortly after Christmas. The Ohio company offers document-hosting services to government agencies in at least 21 states. Iowa counties that are known to have used at least some of Cott Systems’ services include Linn, Dallas, Scott, Allamakee, Black Hawk and Jasper counties.

The Linn County Recorder’s Office, which uses Cott Systems to record real estate transactions and to search previously recorded records, currently can’t record or view any real estate documents, the office said. The office still is able to process passports, vital records and other transactions, like hunting and fishing licenses through the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

Linn County Recorder Carolyn Siebrecht said Cott Systems told the office there is “no evidence that customer data was taken from the hosted environment.”

“Ultimately, there is no updated time frame when business will resume; however, we receive end of day updates from Cott Systems as they work to get our data back online as soon as possible,” Siebrecht said. “Once we have access to our software to record, we will work quickly to get all documents recorded.”

Polk County uses some of Cott Systems’ software, but doesn’t contract with Cott for hosting the county’s records. As a result, it has been unaffected, according to Tom Brogan, Polk County’s first deputy recorder.

Johnson County was also unaffected, said Johnson County Recorder Kim Painter. Cott Systems is the county’s vendor for indexing, search and retrieval of recorder documents but all records are processed, stored and archived on hardware in-house, Painter said.

“We are processing all recordings as normal and are up and running with no disruptions here,” Painter said. “We are receiving regular updates on any changes in status on Cott’s end as they move to conclude their investigation and restore full services to hosted counties affected by the outage.”

Dallas County, however, does have its documents hosted by Cott. Dallas County Recorder ReNae Arnold said that the company recently notified her of the hack.

“I don’t know anything about what happened or any of the details,” she said. “Their system was compromised, but how far (the hackers) went into their system, I have no idea. They’re not giving us that information.”

She added that Cott Systems has informed her office that the FBI is involved and is investigating the matter.

Other news sources have reported that Cott Systems informed all of its government customers on Dec. 26 of the attack. Cott Systems provides public-records management services for more than 300 government agencies in the United States. The company helps those agencies record and archive documents, while also making them searchable and accessible to members of the public.

The article first appeared in the Iowa Capital Dispatch.

Izabela Zaluska and Gage Miskimen of The Gazette contributed to this report.