No data was compromised in security breach of TAD computers, investigation finds
An investigation into a potential security breach of Tarrant Appraisal District computers found that no data was compromised during a cyberattack in October 2022.
The TAD board voted Friday to make the full report public on the investigation by Round Rock-based Apollo Information Systems, which did not find direct evidence of data theft despite vulnerabilities in the website.
“Tarrant Appraisal District attempted immediate containment in October 2022 by taking the website down and creating a sanitized server to put it back online,” the report read.
The report also said there was “minimal evidence of threat actor activity.”
TAD launched a new website in April 2023. The site was quickly overwhelmed by traffic, with pages locking up, failing to download or timing out.
It was reported in December that taxpayers’ information had not been compromised when part of the report was disclosed.
“We can’t say that anybody’s data was used for anything and we have no evidence that that happened, which is remarkable because things were so available,” board member Rich DeOtte told the Star-Telegram in an interview Friday.
He added that vigilance is necessary moving forward
“We’re never going to formally close an investigation that in some respects is going to continue on as part of our routine day to day monitoring of our work,” DeOtte said.
