OPSO was the "target of a ransomware cyber attack," around 4:30 a.m. Thursday, the agency said in a statement. Such attacks rely on viruses that lock up computer data, used as a kind of hostage while hackers demand ransoms from the owner.
OPSO, an 800-person agency, didn't provide details of how much or what kind of data is at risk, only that "more than a dozen computers connected to the OPSO system have been compromised by the attack."
The "jail computer system has not been compromised," OPSO said, suggesting that the lockup's security functions weren't affected.
"We did suffer a cyber attack this morning that did impact some of our systems," Sheriff Susan Hutson said in a videoed statement. OPSO's employees discovered the problem around 8 a.m. when they had trouble logging into their computers, the agency said.
"But we've isolated that and the jail systems are on a separate server and they're functioning just properly," Hutson added. "So we're able to run the jail, get people to court and continue to do what we do every day."
An OPSO spokesperson didn't respond to questions on the scope of the attack or say if it was comparable to the last major breach at City Hall six years ago, which took months to fix and cost taxpayers millions of dollars.
Hackers reportedly never demanded a ransom in that case, and it's unclear if they've demanded one from OPSO.
The agency's "IT team is actively working to restore systems, secure our network, and determine the origin of the attack," OPSO said. They're being assisted by the Louisiana Governor's Office of Homeland Security, Louisiana State Police Cybercrimes Unit, New Orleans Office of Homeland Security and City Hall's IT department.
Hutson's department has already been hobbled by the May escape of 10 detainees from the jail. In the months since then, they've rushed to complete millions of dollars in repairs to help harden the facility.
OPSO issued $15 million in bonds to cover most of those costs, but Hutson told the New Orleans City Council in July that her department needed an additional $9 million. The City of New Orleans, as a whole, is staring down a $100 million deficit of its own.
The last major cyber attack among the New Orleans local government targeted City Hall's computer networks in late 2019.
The hack disrupted payments to vendors, blocked roughly two-thirds of city employees from accessing emails and sullied operations of Municipal and Traffic Court.
It took months to scrub more than 3,400 computers clean of malicious software, with overall fixes totaling more than $7 million.
After a separate attack on Louisiana school boards around the same time, the state formed a quick-strike team of IT specialists to respond to local cyber emergencies.
The group, known as Emergency Support Function 17, has stayed busy in the years since: Its costs grew from $2.3 million in 2020 to $20.6 million in 2023. Those costs are then reimbursed by local governments.
Ransomware attacks against local governments are common because cities and counties often have access to reams of sensitive data, but don't always have the resources or expertise to harden their software.
City operations in Atlanta and Baltimore were badly hobbled in 2018 and 2019, respectively, over ransomware attacks where hackers reportedly demanded between $51,000 to $76,000 to release the government's data.
After those governments declined to pay, the costs of repairing computer systems in both cities totaled between $17 million to $18 million, according to news reports.
In South Louisiana, other cyber attacks in recent years targeted Southeastern Louisiana University, Xavier, The Port of Louisiana and Jefferson Parish's court system.
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