WASHINGTON COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) — Washington County commissioners are trying to revamp security after last month’s ransomware attack on the sheriff’s office computer system.
They discussed some emergency funding during Wednesday morning’s commission meeting.
When hackers attacked the Washington County Sheriff’s Office last month, they compromised the personal data of 500 current and former employees.
The data includes home addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, and other personal information.
After the county refused to pay the ransom, the unknown group released some information on the internet.
“I’ve put the word out the best I can, you know, you know, talking to people who specialize in there and everywhere I went you know, the answers are saying is just monitor their credit as closely as they can and that’s from a personal standpoint, that’s what me and my family’s doing,” Washington County Sheriff Kevin Crews said.
Sheriff Crews believed the cyber attack came from Russia.
He’s asking county commissioners to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
“What we discussed on Friday was basically the plan for support and to do a complete overhaul for the network, for the sheriff’s office, adding in several cyber security occurring tools, some that are related towards FDLE, criminal justice, and information systems requirements to have in place,” Zack Dunlap with Inspire Technologies said.
Wednesday morning, county commissioners approved amending Sheriff Crews’ budget by $235,000.
Commissioners say they are relying on House Bill 745 and a senate bill to make up the difference.
“We talked about several different avenues and possibilities going forward with a budget request to revamp the network and provide the sheriff’s office support and then to look at a funding measure which is coming through the house and the senate right now, relating to House Bill 745 that allows for the allocation of 911 funds in the support of dispatch systems, radio systems, cyber security, as well as backup systems,” Dunlap said.
If the bill does not pass, commissioners said they’ll make up the difference throughout the year.
Cyber security experts said the sheriff’s office is 10 years behind where it should be.
They hope updated software will correct the situation.
