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IT reports phone outages and security incidents; county to migrate to Teams phones with training and redundancy
Summary
IT staff told supervisors about recent phone outages and browser-based malware infections, and outlined a migration to Microsoft Teams phones with a pilot, training sessions and redundant internet connections to support VoIP traffic.
Phil, a county IT staff member, told supervisors the department has seen widespread phone issues caused by stolen cables, cut fiber and downstream carrier problems and said the county is moving to Microsoft Teams phones.
"Patch Tuesday, we had, there were 73 vulnerabilities in the latest patch Tuesday, 2 of which were considered 0 days that were being actively exploited," Phil said, adding that infections tied to browser extensions led IT to begin blocking some extensions to reduce malware incidents.
Phil said stolen credential harvesting and credential reuse pose increasing risk and that some attackers are bypassing multi-factor authentication. He said infected machines are quarantined and rebuilt as a four-hour process.
Charles, an IT staff member leading the Teams pilot, described benefits of the migration: easier calling by name, Outlook integration and mobile Teams that can present the user's desk number. "The migration to Teams phones right now is actually moving forward," Charles said. He said the county will offer training sessions for departments before conversion and that recordings will be available for anyone who cannot attend.
On infrastructure, IT said the county currently has two internet providers and is adding a redundant location and spillover capability to route traffic if the primary line becomes busy. IT staff said county bandwidth is currently underutilized but that they will monitor usage as more departments move to VoIP.
Ending: IT staff said the Teams pilot and additional redundancy are intended to reduce outages and give departments more flexible calling options; they urged staff to attend scheduled training sessions.
