Why It Matters
Maryland’s State Department of Assessments and Taxation has reopened public access to its property ownership database after a cybersecurity incident forced a nearly two-week shutdown. The system allows residents, businesses, and researchers to view property ownership records, sale histories, and assessment data across the state.
What Happened
State officials detected suspicious activity on department servers on April 14 and immediately took the assessment and taxation website offline to contain the threat. The database remained unavailable to the public while security teams analyzed affected servers and implemented protective measures.
As of Monday, users can once again conduct searches on the site. The search tool provides access to property owner names, characteristics of properties, and historical sale information for parcels statewide.
Alyssa Nolte, a spokesperson for the department, said officials needed time to examine compromised servers and address vulnerabilities that could allow future breaches or create risks for public users. A final round of testing conducted over the weekend cleared the system for restoration.
By the Numbers
The database was offline for approximately 13 days following the April 14 incident. During the outage, residents seeking property records were directed to county-level real property assessment offices for assistance. The system provides access to millions of property records across Maryland’s 23 counties and Baltimore City.
The Investigation
Officials from Maryland’s Department of Information Technology said their investigation indicates only public property records were accessed during the breach. Those records were already available to any user through the website’s search function before the incident occurred.
Authorities have not disclosed the nature of the suspicious activity or whether any specific threat actors have been identified. The investigation into the cybersecurity incident remains ongoing.
What’s Next
The State Department of Assessments and Taxation has restored full public access to its property search tool. Officials said additional security measures have been implemented to prevent similar incidents, though specific details of those protections have not been made public.