Update: State of Alaska Cybersecurity Issues Impacting Retirement Contributions Resolved

March 21, 2025

In early November, the Division of Retirement and Benefits (DRB) experienced a system outage. This affected the timely deposit of retirement contributions to your State of Alaska Public Employees' Retirement System (PERS) and the Teachers' Retirement System (TRS). You should have received an email from the Division of Retirements and Benefits about this issue.

What Happened:

  • On November 4, 2024, the State Office of Information Technology detected an intrusion into the DRB’s main servers.
  • All DRB programs and applications were unreachable for three weeks during the investigation.
  • The investigation confirmed that DRB’s data was not accessed, viewed, or exported.
  • Due to the rebuilding time required, DRB decided to migrate all programs to the State's cloud.

During Migration:

  • Most programs migrated smoothly except for eReporting, which is how UA reports all employee and employer contributions to the DRB.
  • eReporting needed extensive updates and code rewriting to be compatible with the cloud.
  • During this time, UA was unable to report retirement plan contributions to the DRB.

Current Status:

  • As of March 7, 2025, all employers have been provided access to eReporting and can now submit retirement system contributions to the DRB.

What You Need to Know:

  • The University is working with the Division of Retirement and Benefits to update all payroll reporting by April 15, 2025.

Compensation for DCR Lost Earnings or DB Interest:

  • PERS Tier IV and TRS Tier II Defined Contribution Retirement (DCR) participants: Compensation will be based on earnings from the date contributions should have posted after the system outage to the date they actually posted.
    • The DRB will follow the IRS-required correction method, which permits the use of the Department of Labor correction calculator. This method calculates and restores any "lost earnings" by applying an appropriate interest rate to the affected amount over the error period. The goal is to return plan participants to the financial position they would have been in had the error not occurred.
    • It is important to note that the DCR compensation calculations will occur after all employer payroll reporting is up to date.
  • Defined Benefit PERS members and Voluntary Savings Plan contributions: Will receive 2.25% accrued interest for contributions that would have posted to member accounts due by December 31, 2024, had the system outage not occurred. Interest will be systematically applied by the DRB as employers submit their November and December payrolls.

For more information:

  • Visit the DRB’s website at drb.alaska.gov. Status updates will also be posted on the DRB’s Facebook and Instagram pages.
  • The DRB’s website will have an Employer Payroll Reporting Status section to show the last pay period end date posted. Both employees and employers will be able to see if employee contributions are up-to-date and if the employer is reporting within normal payroll timeframes.

Thank you for your patience. The DRB has taken all necessary steps to prevent a recurrence. Please monitor our website and social media for further updates.