[ad_1]
(ABC 6 News) — Mower County is looking to get the wheels turning on a new records management system that could keep them from having to pay a ransom if the county offices fall victim to another ransomware attack.
RELATED: Mower County announces ransomware incident has been resolved
During Mower County’s Board of Commissioners meeting on Tuesday, the board reviewed a request from sheriff Steven Sandvik to replace the county’s current records management system and instead contract with ProPhoenix which would take the county’s records and run it through a cloud server.
Cyber attacks are nothing new in the United States. Last year, the FBI reported 220 government facilities fell victim to a ransomware attack and with the advancement of artificial intelligence, computer technician, Vince Guerra, from the Computer Resource Center in Rochester said bad actors can begin using it to their benefit.
RELATED: Cyber security expert weighs in on Mower County ransomware attack
“It’ll ping them that this you know, they have an exploit, they have something they can break into and then it just makes them very easy to like pick targets and go from there,” Guerra said.
Mower County’s new cloud storage program comes with a hefty price tag of just under $500,000 but county officials said the cost isn’t expected to his taxpayers in Mower County as much of the money was already baked into the county’s operating budget.
But the question remains, is the new system secure?
Guerra said that is not exactly the case and it more so depends on who is managing the system in question.
“We’re always the main vulnerability, no, no matter how good a password is no matter how locked down anything is there is still that chance.”
So if anything could be hacked at any time, then why would an organization decide to change its records system? Well, I’m told the new system makes data easily recoverable, meaning they wouldn’t need to pay a ransom to restore their access.
“If your laptop got stolen, anything where you couldn’t get to your actual like where it was saved it before, if you have that account information you could get that data back,” Guerra said.
County officials told ABC 6 News they filed a report with the FBI and are working with what they call a third party cyber security and data forensic firm to help lead the investigation into the cyber attack. As far as the transition goes, Mower County staff says it’s been in the works since last summer.
[ad_2]
Source link
