NAPOLEON — Henry County was targeted by a “ransomware” attack that may have exposed more than 17,000 county voters’ personal information, Henry County Commission President Glenn Miller said Tuesday.

The county last week sent a letter to 17,841 voters to notify them of the computer hacking incident that occurred Oct. 31. County officials also offered a free year of service from a credit-monitoring company.

The letter says the county was targeted by ransomware with the intent of forcing the county to pay to unlock its own data. However, the letter from the Henry County commissioners said no ransom was paid and the data was recovered from backup files. It said no votes were lost.

“All votes in Henry County were processed and properly accounted for,” the letter said.

Mr. Miller said a file was created, but it is believed no information was extracted from the database.

“There would have been some indication of a movement of data and there was no indication,” he said.

With each name in the file of voter registrations was the person’s address, phone number, ZIP code, party affiliation, the last four digits of their Social Security number, and their driver’s license number.

Mr. Miller said the invasion of the county’s computer system has been reported to the FBI, the Ohio Secretary of State, the Ohio Attorney General, and U.S. Homeland Security. It is under investigation by the FBI.

Joshua Eck, a spokesman for the Ohio Secretary of State’s office, said the office shut down its connection with Henry County to replace the existing computer.

First Published December 7, 2016, 5:00 a.m.