State officials announced Wednesday they are taking steps to restore essential services but acknowledge evidence of data exfiltration after Nevada was targeted in a cybersecurity attack on Saturday.

Tim Galluzi, state chief information officer and executive director of the Governor’s Technology Office, stated in a press conference Wednesday a data center operations team detected anomalous activity from “malicious actors” within its server infrastructure. State and federal partners could not identify nor classify who was responsible for the attack and continue investigating the matter, he said.

In response, the team worked to contain the threat and took systems offline to prevent further intrusion. However, it meant causing delays in direct access to state agencies or the services they provide. State departments closed offices Monday and Tuesday, with websites and phone lines unavailable at times. Emergency services remained open.

“Our goal is to restore full functionality as quickly as possible, but we have a duty to do so safely and securely,” Galluzi said. “Bringing systems back online is a meticulous process, as we must ensure the threat has been fully eradicated before we reconnect them.”

Galluzi also announced as part of the attack, a forensic investigation found some data had been exfiltrated outside the state network. Specialists are analyzing terabytes of information to determine next steps, he added.

Gov. Joe Lombardo did not attend Wednesday’s press conference, but Chief of Staff Ryan Cherry reported state communications and infrastructure remained intact, including employee accounts, payments to school districts and charter schools, network connectivity to executive branch offices and the Office of Emergency Management’s office.

Technologists have been working with local and federal partners to ensure recovery of essential services such as Medicaid coverage, the public employee benefits program and unemployment claims. Officials said Wednesday the incident did not affect state payroll with employees still being paid on time.

Tonya Laney, director of the Department of Motor Vehicles, said the Governor’s Technology Office is working constantly to reconnect the public to agency services, including driver’s license permit testing, registration and titling, its online complaint system that connects to its Compliance Enforcement Division and contact center. Late fees or penalties will be waived and appointments that could not be seen during the outage will be honored for at least two weeks as a walk-in accommodation, Laney said.