The Butler County Jail announced this week that an email account belonging to one of its employees had been accessed last month by a third-party who used it to send unsolicited messages.

The county first learned of the unauthorized access to the employee’s account as early as Tuesday, Aug. 8, when the account started sending unauthorized spam messages. Shortly after, the county launched an investigation with the help of a “nationally recognized digital forensics team.”

The investigation eventually discovered that an unknown actor had gained access to the box and that “personally identifiable information” was impacted. However, the investigators also scoured dark web sources and found no indication that any sensitive county-related information was released or put up for sale.

As a result of the incident, Butler County is advising anyone who may have been impacted to take the appropriate steps to protect their personal information.

“We are committed to investing in the internal processes, tools and resources to secure our email and reduce the likelihood that this can happen again. Because cyber threats are evolving and pervasive, Butler County is continuously working to identify and mitigate threats when they occur,” said Butler County IT director Jim Venturini in a news release.