The threat of cyberattack is real, as Summit County discovered recently.
Summit County Manager Tom Fisher gave a brief report Wednesday to the County Council saying that the Mountain Regional Water District had sustained some electronic assaults in recent weeks.
“It was a small malware incident against a few of their computers in the office. It had no effect on any operation, or any safety situation with water delivery, or treatment of water.”
He said the attack was directed at their office activities.
“And the result of it was that they lost a couple years worth of data related to that, which they believe they’re going to be able to recover, or that the state believes that they’re going to be able to recover.”
Fisher and the county staff are asking for some personnel additions to the budget, including a position for a multimedia coordinator. The recent cyberattack is one reason for the request.
“It’s real, that this stuff can happen,” he said. “And it can happen to public entities and public entities close to us. So it’s just another reason why we need—I’m not touting our request for an IT person, but we need to have the right expertise and the right budget around these types of things, because they’re becoming real. We’re already insured against that type of activity. But it doesn’t make it better, when it happens, to have insurance.”
