New Hampshire Lottery website back online after experiencing a cyber attack

The New Hampshire Lottery website was back online early Saturday morning after experiencing a cyber attack last week. Lottery officials announced the attack around 9:30 a.m. on Friday - however, it remains unclear when it first began. According to the latest reports, they are continuing to work to restore the NH Lottery website and will provide updates to players on the progress.

"Our players' security and integrity of our web platform is our primary concern. We have notified our players of this situation and we will continue to keep the public updated as we receive more information," Lottery officials told WMUR in a statement. They also warned people visiting the site should not click on any pop-up messages.

Thank you for your patience!

The website is back online as of Saturday morning. We continue to work to restore access to NH iLottery and to update winning numbers and jackpot amounts.

Please check back for updates regarding our progress. pic.twitter.com/4ALbBrpulP

— NH Lottery (@NHLottery) August 27, 2022

The attack happened on Friday, a typically busy day for lottery sales, with the Mega Millions drawing taking place late at night. At the time the attack was detected, Lottery officials took the website offline as a caution method while they worked through the security issues. For the time being, it is unknown whether any personal information was compromised in the attack.

However, according to the above-cited source, lottery ticket sales in stores statewide were not affected, bringing relief to store owners. "Sales in the store are not impacted so everything's been good," McLaughlin, of McLaughlin's Country Market in Concord, said.

Jeff Stutzman, the CEO of New Hampshire-based cybersecurity company Trusted Internet, says, generally speaking, attacks like this are on the rise. "We've been seeing a lot of government sites that have been hit in the last two years. Ransomware has gone through the roof, in web applications. All kinds of things are being hit," Stutzman told WMUR.