ST. GEORGE — The St. George Fire Protection District is suing Baton Rouge cybersecurity company General Informatics, blaming them for allowing hackers to gain access to the fire department's network in 2023.

The lawsuit, filed by the fire department on May 23, claims that General Informatics was hired to prevent cyberattacks and now seeks damages from a December 2023 attack.

St. George Fire's lawsuit added that hackers were "living off the land" inside the network, meaning the hackers used tools already built into the network to avoid being found and further infest and scrape the fire department's network.

The lawsuit also accuses General Informatics of installing high-speed internet and selling the district network switches that were incapable of accommodating the new internet. No backups were made of the servers, the lawsuit also alleges, despite being included in the contract between the two parties. 

On the fire district's network, a "note written in plain text which contained the fire district's administrative credentials for its various accounts and software applications," representing another major issue highlighted by the lawsuit. 

Other issues also popped up, including that the network firewall was not recording certain activity and that it was not properly segmented to prevent malware from making its way through the system.

The case is set to go before a judge or an exception hearing in the 19th JDC on July 13.