Roanoke County on Oct. 28 recognized its information technology staff for quickly responding to an urgent cybersecurity advisory that identified active exploitation of specific networking equipment.

Information Technology Director Uma Marcus told the Board of Supervisors the county received an alert from the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and immediately assessed whether systems had been breached. "We first concluded that we were not compromised," Marcus said. She said the team then "installed a critical patch to our network and mitigated multiple potential vulnerabilities within hours." Marcus described the incident as a "zero-day" threat and said external vendor partners observed several failed attempts to exploit the county's network.

The recognition followed brief remarks from Chairman Daffer and several board members thanking the IT staff for the response and for keeping county operations running. A board member asked whether a third-party vendor had observed the attacks from the outside; Marcus clarified that vendor partners monitor network traffic externally and reported failed intrusion attempts, but the county's systems were not breached.

Marcus identified staff members present at the meeting: Tim and John from the network team, Quintin from help-desk support, Joseph from the cybersecurity team, and Jennifer, infrastructure manager. The board and IT team posed for a group photo following the presentation.

The board did not announce any fiscal implications or changes to policy during the recognition. Marcus said only that the team worked with vendor partners and the county administration and that routine user training and security protocols remain important to ongoing risk management.

The action was a formal recognition and no formal vote beyond the routine agenda procedures was recorded.