Associated Press reported that a cyberattack on a third-party vendor has impacted employment services, including unemployment benefits, in several states. They said, “A cyberattack on a software company has disrupted unemployment benefits and job-seeking assistance for thousands of people in several states.
In Tennessee, the website for unemployment benefits remained down Thursday morning after the vendor, Geographic Solutions Inc., told the state Sunday that service would be interrupted. Some 12,000 Tennesseans rely on the unemployment program, and for now, they’re not getting their payments. The company said that it expects Tennessee’s system to be back online before July 4.”
Paul Toomey, the president of vendor Geographic Solutions, said in a statement on Wednesday, “We recently identified anomalous activity on our network, and immediately took [Tennessee’s] Jobs4TN system offline to halt the activity. With the help of third-party specialists, we are conducting a full investigation to determine the cause and scope of the incident,” He added, “Our current focus is working around the clock to bring Jobs4TN back online. We anticipate that this will occur prior to the July 4th holiday.”
The effect of the cyberattack on Unemployment Benefits
To what extent the attack has affected is not clear yet. Geographic Solutions who have clients in more than 35 states and territories is down now. Statescoop reported, “California’s Employment Development Department said in a release Wednesday that “dozens of states” are included in the outages. The overall scope of the attack is not immediately clear. Geographic Solutions did not immediately return a call for comment. Louisiana’s workforce commission posted on social media that its HiRE employment website is down and that the outages could affect up to 40 states.”
According to Engadget, “The situation could have a significant effect on those who depend on unemployment benefits and are having problems accessing them. Around 12,000 people rely on such benefits in Tennessee, but the AP reports that they are not receiving payments.”
