LUBBOCK, Texas — Tyler Technologies, a Plano-based company with ties to Lubbock, said on Thursday there was no reason to believe its customers were affected by a hacking incident.
Tyler is considered a leading provider of software to local government entities nationwide. As of 2018, Tyler’s client base included more than 15,000 local government offices in all 50 states.
A statement from the company said, “Tyler Technologies is in the process of responding to a security incident involving unauthorized access to our internal phone and information technology systems by an unknown third party.”
Lubbock County is among those customers — having signed a deal with Tyler Technologies in 2018 valued at $10 million.
In a statement at the time, Tyler said, “Lubbock County was looking to overhaul many of its software systems and wanted state-of-the-art systems that would manage public safety, civil process, ERP, and court case management processes.”
But ties to Lubbock run much deeper than that. Tyler Technologies’ Lubbock location used to be known as INCODE. Dusty Womble of Lubbock started Interactive Computer Designs (later known as INCODE) in 1980.
Womble sold the Lubbock company to Tyler in 1998. He then served as Tyler’s executive vice president and remains on the board of directors.
“We are treating this matter with the highest priority…,” Tyler said. “We have confirmed that the malicious software the intruder used was ransomware.”
Ransomware allows an attacker to scramble data. The attacker will unscramble the data in exchange for a ransom.
The Associated Press reported, “The Texas Department of Information Resources said it could not comment because of an ongoing federal investigation. The FBI declined to comment.”
Because the election was 40 days out as of Thursday, questions have been raised. Tyler addressed them.
“None of our products is a system of record for voting or any other election- or voting-related activities,” Tyler said.
(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
