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Unemployment payments interrupted as Nebraska site down for days after cyberattack

Posted at 6:43 PM, Jul 01, 2022
and last updated 2022-07-01 19:53:46-04

OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — Nebraska's unemployment website, NEworks, remained offline late Friday afternoon.

All other states who work with the company that provides the sites, Geographic Solutions, Inc., are offline, too.

The sites were taken down on Sunday after it discovered the attack, the NDOL said earlier this week, and no user data was impacted.

"Without the system up, we cannot verify who is eligible for the payments and approve the payments," a Nebraska Department of Labor spokesperson said.

The issue impacts roughly 3,000 people. Last week, about 2,500 filed weekly claims, and about 600 more filed their initial claim. Nebraska's May unemployment rate, the most recent available, was the lowest in the country at less than 2%.

The NDOL expects to receive a more detailed timeline on when the site might return online Friday night or over the weekend.

Filings will be able to be backdated, and eligible Nebraskans will receive all payments once the site is back online, the spokesperson, Grace Johnson, said.

NEworks has job search functions, as well as serving as the way to file claims. Because that's down, too, the NDOL encourages use of the National Labor Exchange.

"We encourage individuals to work with our job centers across the state, who routinely make referrals to programs and services not just within the Department of Labor, but to other agencies," Johnson said.

Nebraska has 14 job centers that will reopen on Tuesday after the holiday.

IowaWORKS is also down, impacting work search functions in Iowa. But it does not impact payments, as its filing site remains online.

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