Jacksonville Beach confirms January cyberattack affected employees, Beaches Energy customers

Jacksonville Beach is giving more details about a cybersecurity breach from two months ago, described in a notice as “an event which may affect the privacy of information for certain employees of the City and customers of Beaches Energy Services.”

According to the Duval County community, its systems “were subject to unauthorized access and that information may have been taken from our network between January 22, 2024 through January 29, 2024.”

Employees and customers of the utility company were among those impacted by the breach, with “sensitive information for certain individuals” obtained.

“Notice is being mailed to the City employees and customers of Beaches Energy Services whose information may have been impacted. The information that could have been impacted varies by individual, but may include the individual’s name, Social Security number, driver’s license number, and/or bank account information.”

Back in January, Jacksonville Beach briefly shut down many of its city services and closed City Hall after information technology systems for the city of about 25,000 people mysteriously shut down.

People are getting notice of this event, and those who believe they were impacted or those who simply have questions are urged to call 844-709-0703 between the hours of 9 a.m. and 9 p.m., Monday through Friday, or visit www.jacksonvillebeach.org for more information.

This isn’t the first time a Florida city had its municipal services interrupted by aggressive hackers. Two cities sustained cyberattacks within one month in 2019. Both Lake City and Riviera Beach paid out in the six-figures to get sensitive data returned from hackers.

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Drew Dixon of Florida Politics contributed to this report.