Goochland shifts emergency alerts after CodeRED cybersecurity incident

Goochland County posted an update on December 2 saying the nationwide CodeRED emergency notification platform was taken out of service following a targeted cybercriminal incident. County officials said they received an initial update from OnSolve on November 26 describing the breach, and that a forensic investigation is ongoing while the vendor has decommissioned the platform to contain the event.

County staff warned that CodeRED generally stores basic alert subscriber contact information including names, addresses, phone numbers and passwords used to create profiles. OnSolve is still determining the scope of any data removed from its systems, and it has advised subscribers who reused their CodeRED password for other accounts to change those passwords immediately.

With CodeRED notifications out of service, Goochland has listed alternate channels for emergency messaging. The county will post alerts on the Goochland County website and on its Facebook, Instagram and X accounts. County officials also arranged with the Virginia Department of Emergency Management to access FEMA's IPAWS system for wireless emergency alerts if a situation requires a broad push to mobile phones. Residents are urged to make sure emergency alerts are enabled in their phone settings so they will receive wireless alerts if IPAWS is used.

The outage affects anyone who relied on the voluntary CodeRED system to receive community warnings, including severe weather notices, shelter in place orders and other urgent directives. Because the vendor hosts subscriber data for jurisdictions across the country, the incident is part of a wider strain on local emergency communications and highlights the county reliance on third party platforms for public safety messaging.

Goochland provided an Emergency Operations Center phone number for questions and said it will publish further updates on its website as new information becomes available. Residents should change any passwords reused from CodeRED on other services and monitor county channels for real time alerts and instructions during the outage.