Photo: JThorne, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Ohio Auditor of State Keith Faber said Tuesday that overseas cybercriminals and possible “foreign state actors” were behind an Oct. 25 cyberattack on his office, which took its website and online accounts offline.

The office detected and quarantined the threat immediately, Faber said in an Oct. 27 statement. State and federal law enforcement are investigating.

Faber said the attack was not a ransomware attack but did not specify what kind it was.

No data was lost, Faber said, and the office does not believe financial information of Ohioans or audited government agencies is at risk. Payments go through a separate government portal and the data was not on the office’s web server.

Audit clients may have issues with online payments, Faber said. The office is working to create a temporary web platform and asks for patience until the permanent server goes back online. The website remained offline as of about noon Tuesday.

“On a near-daily basis, we see reports of private and public entities targeted by criminals,” Faber said. “The measure of an office is not whether it is subject to such an attack but rather how it responds to these very common threats.”

The Columbus Dispatch