FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — Fulton County officials said third-party background checks -- one of the many things impacted by a recent cyberattack -- can now be completed following a transition to a new record search site.
Fulton County Government was hit was a cyberattack nearly two months ago. And as the county continues to investigate and bring systems back online, 11Alive viewers reached out, saying they were having issues with their background checks getting completed due to the outages.
On February 21, Nathan was getting ready to start his day as a rideshare driver when he encountered a problem.
"I got to the airport, the taxi lot, and I turned my app on, it said ‘can't go online until you authorize the background check’," Nathan remembered. "So I went online to authorize the background check, and it says it’s delayed or something."
The Fulton County resident, who started driving for rideshare about a year ago as a main source of income, said he thought it was just a mistake. Nathan said an auto-response from the rideshare company told him it would take about seven days to resolve. He said he received that response weeks ago and is still waiting on a solution.
He estimated waiting for the background check cost him about $6,000 or $7,000 so far. Nathan said since then, he had to rent out the room he was renting to supplement his income.
"I was thinking of the people that would not be able to pay their bills. And what are they going to do if they can't pay their bills?" Nathan said. "And some people are in life or death situations, and what are they going to do if they don't have any excess funds to support themselves?"
In a meeting Friday, Fulton County Board of Commissioners Chairman Robb Pitts provided an update on the county's efforts.
"We have received a number of inquiries about third party background checks, and this has been an important situation for us," said Pitts.
Fulton County Government said the third-party background checks were affected by the outage caused by January’s cyberattack.
On Tuesday, a Fulton County Government spokesperson issued a statement, saying the checks can now be completed through another record site.
Read the statement below:
Background checks conducted by the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office and Fulton County Police Department were not affected by the recent cybersecurity incident.
Third-party background checks completed by accessing court records were affected by the outage. Those checks can now be completed following the transition to a new record search site. Companies conducting third party searches should now access records through re:SearchGA at https://researchga.tylerhost.net/
Nathan said he received an email from the background check company with an update, estimating his background check should be completed by April 2.
Fulton County Government said it's expecting an update on the county’s progress Wednesday morning at the commissioner’s meeting.