JCOPE web servers down after cyberattack

ALBANY, N.Y. (WHEC) — New York’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) Friday said its web server was the target of a "deliberate malicious" cyberattack.

JCOPE says it doesn’t know who was behind the attack or if any user or other agency information was breached, but the server that was hit does house its Lobbying Application and Financial Disclosure Statement Online Filing System, among other things.

The State Office of Information Technology Services took the systems down as a precaution earlier this week when it received an alert of suspicious activity on the server.

JCOPE says those systems will remain offline until they can be brought back up safely and that extensions will be granted automatically for any filings impacted by the outage.

The New York State Police, Office of the Attorney General and the Department of State’s Consumer Protection Division are investigating.

This comes just days after New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the state would be opening a joint operations center in an effort to improve its cybersecurity defenses.