The Fulton County School Board got an update on tax numbers from county officials who have been slowed down recently by the [.fow1-1]cyber[.fow1-1] attack on Fulton County’s data [.fow1-2]servers[.fow1-2].

“I just came out of one of the... meetings. And the county chairman just [said] that we did not pay any [.fow1-3]ransom[.fow1-3]. And I will tell you that we are almost back to normal, we are probably 75 percent back to normal,” Tax Commissioner Arthur Ferdinand told the school board at its last meeting.

A clock, counting down the deadline to pay the [.fow2-1]ransomware[.fow2-1] payment, appeared on a website by the LockBit [.fow2-2]hacker[.fow2-2] group after Ferdinand visited the school board at its meeting last week. The deadline passed on Feb. 29 and nothing happened.

Going forward, Fulton County’s tax system will be in the cloud, he said. He said normally it takes about six to eight months to change the system, but the county is doing it in about two weeks.

“Fortunately for us, before we were [.fow2-3]hacked[.fow2-3], we had collected most of the money and so nobody was [hurt]," Ferdinand said. “We have continued to collect money.”

"The old checks were to be posted and the county should soon be able to take payments by credit card again online, he said.

Ferdinand said that as of Jan. 31, the county had collected 96.52% of its taxes. He said the county has collected $701.6 million out of the $727 million due in tax money for Fulton County Schools.

Final numbers for the previous tax year (2022) reached 99.5%, and the previous two years reached 99.84%, he said.