Alaska DHSS Website Experiencing Cyberattack

In an early evening press release, the Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) says it has identified the dhss.alaska.gov website as the target of a malware attack.

The department is currently working with the appropriate authorities and writes it "is taking immediate actions to prevent further disruption and harm to its servers, systems and databases."

The DHSS website was taken offline the evening of Monday, May 17, while the investigation is being conducted and unavailable to the public until further details are known about the incident. According to the press release, some services, such as COVID-19 vaccine appointment scheduling and the data dashboards, are hosted by outside sources and can still be accessed through covid19.alaska.gov.

The press release comes just weeks after another cyberattack was carried out against the Alaska Court System which crippled online payment services in addition to public access to Alaska Courtview.

Last year, the personal information of Alaska voters was stolen by hackers but reportedly did not compromise election integrity.

According to Alaska DHSS, there are no details about who initiated the attack, why they targeted DHSS, whether the attack is related to any other recent attacks, or how long the website may be down.