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County continues to make progress in restoring systems

Chelan County has made significant progress in restoring operations across its departments and offices following a three-week, system-wide disruption.

This past week, the county’s IT Department was able to restore several systems, including telephones, employees’ desk computers and email, to workable conditions. Offices are open to the public, and employees are working to catch up on work that was temporarily put on hold. The county’s multiple websites were back up on June 15.

“We don’t freely talk about protections we have in place because that is a security issue, and we don’t share the security measures we rely on,” Commissioner Shon Smith said. “What I can say is that we have the same type of protections in place that most of corporate America has – and then some. We’re in the same boat as other governments, businesses and households. These days, something as simple as a click on an advanced phishing email can corrupt a system.”

Chelan County, which has cybersecurity insurance, has been working with its insurance provider and a cybersecurity team to get all systems back up. The disruption, which started on May 24, didn’t affect as many systems as was initially thought. However, the process of restoring them has been intentionally slow so it is done securely and safely.

The investigation into the nature and scope of the event is ongoing. After the investigation is completed, the county will evaluate any future steps that may need to be taken to better protect its systems.

“As unfortunate as this disruption has been, it has given us an opportunity to document workarounds that will be implemented into our Continuity of Operations Plan and will provide us insights as to system improvements we can make to ensure that we can, to the best of our abilities, prevent events such as this from impacting us in the future,” Commissioner Kevin Overbay said.

Commissioner Brad Hawkins added that county employees have stepped up in these challenging weeks.

“Responding to the network shutdown has proven to be extremely challenging, but county staff and officials have handled it as best we can under difficult circumstances,” Hawkins said. “I’m grateful that our employees have been able to help us maintain as many services as possible, including critical public safety measures, during our recovery.”

Department-specific updates continue to be posted to the Chelan County Facebook page.

Last Updated: 06/15/2026 03:08 PM

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