Maryland’s COVID dashboard has returned two weeks after a cybersecurity attack forced officials to shut the site down.

The Maryland Department of Health took down the site and others on Dec. 4, after it detected “unauthorized activity involving multiple network infrastructure systems,” according to a statement on the department’s website. Officials say no data was compromised and they’re working with law enforcement to find who committed the attack. A cybersecurity expert told DCist/WAMU earlier this month that he believes ransomware, holding data and websites hostage in order to extort money from the government, could be one motive.

Dozens of health department websites, including those with information about the Medicaid program and opioid data dashboard, were redirected to Maryland.gov. The attack also affected some external partners, including local health departments.

Officials took servers offline to protect the network but have since restored many of them. They say there’s no evidence at this time that any personal data was compromised.

“Ninety percent of state-level surveillance data for confirmed cases, persons tested negative, testing volume, and positivity rate are restored to the main surveillance dashboard hosted on coronavirus.maryland.gov,” the statement continues. “Using today’s published numbers as a baseline, 24-hour changes will resume tomorrow, 12/21/21. MDH continues to work to reinstate the full COVID-19 dataset and will resume reporting more detailed surveillance information — including deaths and numbers by jurisdiction — as soon as possible.”

But the outage left residents in the dark about how many COVID cases were circulating as some jurisdictions in the region, including D.C., saw record case numbers. (Just hours before the data was restored, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan announced that he has tested positive for COVID.) Maryland reported about 1,900 cases a day on the last day before the outage. Daily cases peaked at 3,400 on Dec. 18, which is still about 300 cases less than a record set in January.

The U.S. overall has 40 cases per 100,000 residents. Maryland has 67 cases per 100,000 people, the District has 51 cases per 100,000 and Virginia has 32 cases per 100,000, according to the New York Times coronavirus tracker.

This attack is the latest to take place in the region in recent months. In May, foreign hackers released what they claimed were 250 gigabytes of data and files stolen from the Metropolitan Police Department, after ransom negotiations apparently failed. And in late 2019, a Montgomery County Public Schools student allegedly exposed the grades and test scores of nearly 6,000 students that were stored on the online program Naviance.

Previously: 

Maryland Health Department Website Shut Down Due To Cyberattack