We begin with continued fallout from the cyber security attack on the State of Nevada.

The State says it identified the attack on Sunday, August 24.

Since then, Nevadans have lacked access to numerous state services.

Tracking the status of their restoration is just one of several angles that our panelists are pursuing.

And here to share the developments they're following are Jessica Hill, Politics Reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal , and Oona Milliken, Southern Nevada Government Accountability Reporter for The Nevada Independent.

Thank you both for joining Nevada Week.

Let's start with critical services that were down and are now back up.

What have you been following, Jessica?

(Jessica Hill) Sure.

So the DMV has had some severe closures for the last week or so.

The offices have been closed.

The online services have been down.

But slowly, those have been restored.

Just yesterday, on Tuesday, in-person offices reopened for vehicle permits, vehicle licenses, that kind of thing.

However, there's still a lot of impact of services.

We're not seeing driver's license renewals or ID renewals at this point.

-Okay.

How big of a deal is this, do you think?

(Oona Milliken) Well, the governor called it one of the biggest challenges of his time in office.

I mean, it's a really big deal.

This has happened to other cities and municipalities around the country; but as far as I know, this is the only statewide attack of this nature that this country's seen in a while.

-Is it fair to expect states and local governments to be prepared for this kind of attack?

Are those systems in place, Jessica?

-Well, the governor has said that he thinks the state has been prepared for this.

They've seen, you know, casinos hit with similar cyber attacks in the past, and it's just something that a lot of municipalities expect.

Cybersecurity experts that I've talked to said that sometimes these things happen in rounds where hackers will go after one industry at a time until they build up their systems.

And right now, it seems like municipalities are under attack.

And there have been some things that the government in Nevada has been trying to push forward.

In the last session, there was a bill that helped, kind of like cohesive and like, unite the cybersecurity departments in the state to better respond to attacks like this.

So cybersecurity experts in Nevada have said that that has helped them be more prepared.

-Okay.

So even though that was established after this last session, they were already prepared to move forward.

You brought up the casinos, though, and I believe the difference is that they paid the hackers, correct, in order to, in order to what?

And is the State going to do the same thing, pay whoever is behind this?

-The State hasn't said if they're going to pay yet or not.

Not all the casinos paid.

But essentially, you know, it's to kind of get your systems back and running to stop the encryption and, you know, get your systems back up.

-And casinos have the money to do that, but do local government entities?

Does the state government?

-I don't think so.

I mean, as you know, Nevada has had some issues with its budget.

It has a very limited budget in the first place.

It doesn't have room to, you know, give a hacker a bunch of money anyway.

But there's a common practice of not paying the ransom.

A lot of governments don't negotiate with terrorists, and that is something that they just haven't been doing.

However, we don't know for sure what the situation is.

The State has not really made that clear.

-What do each of you think is the biggest question that has yet to be answered?

-I think who's responsible is kind of a big one.

Obviously, I don't think that the State is at liberty to say.

It could really impede an investigation if they reveal too much about who the person is-- not the person, but who the entity is and what they're demanding and what's been taken.

So I think until they're further along in their investigation, you know, that's when we'll see more info on that.

-Same for you?

-Yeah, who did it.

I also want to know how it happened.

Did someone-- did an employee accidentally click on a phishing email?

Did they somehow just get into the systems through like a hard drive from like a public space?

I want to know how it happened for sure.

-The governor has said there's been too much focus on who is behind this.

Do you agree or disagree?

-I think it's like the natural inclination to want to know if it's, if it's a national, like an international group.

If it's a foreign adversary, I think it's important that we know who that is.

-Yeah, and if it's part of another operation, for example.

The timeline, how long this is taking to work through, is it long?

Is it normal?

What kind of explanations have you been given?

-From what I understand, this kind of thing can take months.

This is not a quick, easy process.

And, yeah, I don't, I don't think it's-- Already some systems are back up, but I think it could be a while before everything is in full recovery.

-What's the main message that people should take home after watching this, especially if they are employed by the state or rely on state services?

-I think one message is just to make sure your information is protected in the best ways that you can.

You know, make sure that your passwords are, you know, differentiating between different services.

Check your bank accounts for any large purchases.

Or your credit card score, if it goes up and down drastically, then there might be a problem.

Well, mostly just going up.

That could be a problem.

I think those are big things.

But for state employees, the State has assured them that, you know, pay is continuing.

They've been able to manually process that.

So I don't think that's something that state employees need to be worried about.

-And as a government accountability reporter, what stands out to you from what role the State has played in this, the information that they've been releasing?

-I think-- Obviously, this has been covered in the media.

Governor Lombardo did not show up to the first press conference that the governor's office kind of hosted on this topic.

He did show up to the second one.

I think continued presence from the governor and continued communication with the state is really important, because I think a lot of residents are wondering what's going on and if they're, if they've been affected.

So if they continue to communicate with us and with the public, I think that's, you know, a good thing.

But I'm sure we'll find out more on what's happened.

-How was that perceived, his absence at the first press conference?

-It was definitely noticed by a lot of people.

I've gotten emails from readers being like, Why wasn't the governor here for this?

It's like the biggest event.

And as Oona said, the governor said, yes, this is like the biggest crisis that he's dealt with since he's become governor.

So it was surprising to a lot of people that he wasn't there.

And then I think he noticed that and made it a big focal point of the most recent press conference last week on Thursday.

-Thank you so much for joining Nevada Week.

-Thank you.