What happened
A Department of Transportation safety agency contact center was temporarily taken offline after a government contractor was targeted by a cyberattack, POLITICO reports, citing two people with knowledge of the situation. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s contact center is run by Senture.
“The FMCSA Contact Center, run by Senture, had a network attack that brought down their domain, which included phone capabilities,” DOT told POLITICO. The department said FMCSA data was not compromised and an investigation is ongoing. Senture did not respond to a request for comment.
The center first reported technical difficulties on Oct. 6. It is unclear when the attack began or whether it is ongoing. It affected a service that helps drivers and operators of large trucks register through FMCSA’s new Motus platform, which has faced reports of errors since its May rollout.
One person said the attack appeared AI-augmented because it probed systems so quickly; that has not been publicly confirmed. POLITICO calls it the third major cyberattack on a federal agency in recent weeks, after breaches involving the FBI’s jobs portal and a Pentagon personnel system.
Photos are archival or illustrative and do not show the attack or Senture’s facilities.