Suffolk County has been dealing with a weeklong malware mess that compelled it to hit the kill switch on its computer systems last week.
County Executive Steve Bellone said at a press conference Tuesday afternoon that the malware had all the “hallmarks of ransomware,” but that the investigation into the disruptive intrusion is ongoing. The county website is offline as an information-technology management team tries to “safely identify the source of the intrusion,” said Mr. Bellone.
He encouraged anyone with business before the county to head to brick-and-mortar offices but to expect some delays. Media reports this week were rife with frustrated residents trying unsuccessfully to pay red-light tickets, for example.
The county’s 911 system was not affected by the intrusion, but it did impact the Suffolk County Police Department’s ability to log arrests into the system. Mr. Bellone thanked Gov. Kathy Hochul for a new partnership with New York State police, who are providing patrol backup to county police and booking arrestees at their barracks in Riverhead.
County employees, including workers at Cedar Point County Park in East Hampton’s Northwest Woods, were notified of the intrusion via Facebook late last week by Daniel Levler, president of the Suffolk Association of Municipal Employees, the union representing county workers. “Our brothers and sisters in the I.T. field were alerted to this potential attack,” wrote Mr. Levler, “and took immediate steps to protect systems and data. At this time, we have no evidence of stolen data, personal or business, and critical functions of government will continue to operate while this investigation continues. You will have limited access to the internet and email as this process is underway.”
Instead of its usual landing page, with a host of options for conducting online business, the county has set up a temporary page explaining the situation and offering contact information for conducting business offline.
The intrusion, said Mr. Bellone, had been met with a vigorous response to ensure that residents’ personal information was safe from theft by the “sophisticated threat actors” behind the malware, and to make sure critical services were still being performed, and that the county’s digital infrastructure was safe from further attack.
The county has taken steps in recent years to harden that infrastructure from attack and also requires regular training for all employees on best-practices digital discipline in the workplace. Those protocols are mirrored in East Hampton, said Joanne Pilgrim, executive assistant to Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc.
“In regard to protecting against threats to our own system, the Town of East Hampton takes an in-depth approach to cybersecurity,” Ms. Pilgrim said in an email. “Monitoring and prevention includes logging and tracking all security incidents, performing vulnerability assessments, and training staff to protect against threats. We monitor threat data feeds to stay up to date on the latest indicators of issues as well as known threat actors and their tactics, techniques, and procedures. The Information Technology Department keeps town staff apprised of what they can do to help with the overall safety and security of the town’s cyber resources.”
Ms. Pilgrim said it was too soon to say whether the malware intrusion would or has affected town business with Suffolk County.
“East Hampton Town has not of yet experienced any significant impacts related to the county’s ransomware issue,” Ms. Pilgrim said, “other than the need to communicate with the county offline, or, perhaps, having to put some business temporarily on hold. I’m not aware of anything specific that has had to be delayed, but I include that possibility as there may be some department working on something with the county that requires sharing information by email, etc.”
