COBB COUNTY, Ga. — More than two months after a cyber incident on Georgia’s SNAP call center, some of the state’s most vulnerable residents still can’t access the food benefits they rely on.
11Alive News Investigates was first to break the news of the July 28 incident, where bots flooded the call system in what’s referred to as a brute force attack. Concerned that accounts might have been compromised, Georgia Department of Human Services leaders called for EBT vendor Conduent to shut down the call center as well as lock and reissue thousands of impacted benefit cards over fears of theft.
Internal DHS emails show growing concern about disruptions for SNAP families, who typically rely on the call center to access their card balance and monitor transactions. In those exchanges, Commissioner Candice Broce repeatedly urged the creation of a dedicated help line where recipients could contact Conduent for help with their cards as the call center remained offline…