Aransas County Commissioners Court on Oct. 23 authorized the county judge to sign an interlocal cooperation agreement with the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley(UTRGV) Regional Security Operations Center, or RSOC, to investigate and respond to recent, unexplained logging activity on county computer systems.

The authorization came at an emergency meeting called "on less than 72 hours notice pursuant to the emergency meeting provisions of the Texas Open Meetings Act, chapter 551 of the Texas Government Code," after county officials reported potential cybersecurity activity that could affect county communications. The motion to enter and execute the interlocal agreement passed unanimously in open session after a closed-session discussion.

A county staff member told the court that "we started logging some unknown activity on our environment, and we are not sure whether it is a confirmed threat or not, but we need to take action to verify that it is or not." The staff member said RSOC teams would arrive "within about 3 and a half hours" once the agreement was on paper and the engagement authorized.

Court members and staff said the response could affect county communications infrastructure. The staff member said the RSOC engagement "won't include dialing 911 specifically, but it'll include other services ancillary to it," and added that if an active intrusion is not addressed, "they take our environment down, it will affect our communications infrastructure, leaving us pretty crippled to respond to the community's needs." The court then went into closed session to discuss sensitive details of the incident and the proposed RSOC response.

After reconvening to open session, court members voted to approve the authorization. The roll call recorded five affirmative votes and no dissent; the motion passed and the meeting was adjourned. The court did not disclose technical details of the logging activity in open session; those matters were discussed in closed session as permitted under the cited provision of the Texas Government Code.

The interlocal agreement authorizes UTRGV's RSOC to provide incident verification, containment and mitigation services for Aransas County information systems. The court's action allows the county judge to execute the contract and bring RSOC teams on site for immediate assistance. Additional operational details and any fiscal terms were not specified in the open record.