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Fulton County says cyberattack did not impact Trump election interference case
Officials said the court and other systems in Georgia’s most populous county were hacked over the weekend, interrupting routine operations, but the district attorney’s office said the racketeering case against former President Donald Trump was unaffected.
Fulton County, which includes most of Atlanta, was experiencing a “widespread system outage” from a “cybersecurity incident,” county commission Chair Robb Pitts said Monday in a video posted on social media. Notably, he said, the outage is affecting the county’s phone, court and tax systems.
But the office of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said the racketeering case against Trump and others was not affected.
“All material related to the election case is kept in a separate, highly secure system that was not hacked and is designed to make any unauthorized access extremely difficult if not impossible,” Willis’ office said in a statement.
But the prosecutor’s office said its operations were being “drastically” affected by the electronic court filing system outage. Visitors to the website that houses Fulton County’s online court records were greeted by a message saying it is “temporarily unavailable.”
Additionally, the statement said, the Atlanta Police Department was not sending emails to or opening emails from the district attorney’s office out of concern for its own systems. That was hindering prosecutors’ work because about 85% of their cases come from Atlanta police.
County spokesperson Jessica Corbitt said Tuesday there was no estimate for when the outage would be repaired. Most county offices remained open, though certain transactions were limited due to the outage, according to the county’s website.
In an update Tuesday evening, the county said that phone lines were still down for most Fulton County’s municipal offices, and its justice system was unable to access online records, relying instead on “backup processes,” including paper records, to schedule court hearings and process detainees.
The Fulton County Police Department was also unable to issue police reports as of Tuesday, and Fulton County’s election offices were temporarily closed.
The county said in its release there was no evidence that the hackers had obtained “personally identifiable information.”
The exact cause of the breach remains under investigation.
A Fulton County grand jury in August indicted Trump and 18 others. They’re accused of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to illegally try to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. Four people have already pleaded guilty after reaching plea deals with prosecutors. Trump and the others who remain have pleaded not guilty.
Pitts said the outage was reported to law enforcement and was under investigation. The FBI office in Atlanta confirmed that it was aware of the breach and had been in contact with the county’s information technology department but declined to discuss specifics.
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A food company known for popular grocery store condiments has recalled a package of tortilla strips that may be contaminated with wheat, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Friday. The product is meant to be gluten-free.
Sugar Foods, a manufacturing and distribution corporation focused mainly on various toppings, artificial sweeteners and snacks, issued the recall for the “Santa Fe Style” version of tortilla strips sold by the brand Fresh Gourmet.
“People who have a wheat allergy or severe sensitivity to wheat run the risk of serious or life-threatening allergic reaction if they consume the product,” said Sugar Foods in an announcement posted by the FDA.
Packages of these tortilla strips with an expiration date as late as June 20, 2025, could contain undeclared wheat, meaning the allergen is not listed as an ingredient on the label. The Fresh Gourmet product is marketed as gluten-free.
Sugar Foods said a customer informed the company on Nov. 19 that packages of the tortilla strips actually contained crispy onions, another Fresh Gourmet product normally sold in a similar container. The brand’s crispy onion product does contain wheat, and that allergen is noted on the label.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
No illnesses tied to the packaging mistake have been reported, according to the announcement from Sugar Foods. However, the company is still recalling the tortilla strips as a precaution. The contamination issue may have affected products distributed between Sept. 30 and Nov. 11 in 22 states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington.
Sugar Foods has advised anyone with questions about the recall to contact the company’s consumer care department by email or phone.
CBS News reached out to Sugar Foods for more information but did not receive an immediate reply.
This is the latest in a series of food product recalls affected because of contamination issues, although the others involved harmful bacteria. Some recent, high-profile incidents include an E. coli outbreak from organic carrots that killed at least one person in California, and a listeria outbreak that left an infant dead in California and nine people hospitalized across four different states, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The E. coli outbreak is linked to multiple different food brands while the listeria outbreak stemmed from a line of ready-to-eat meat and poultry products sold by Yu-Shang Foods.