Kerr County IT outlines cybersecurity lessons and proposes IT‑focused EOC after July flood
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Summary
County IT presented lessons from a Texas A&M/TEEX course recommending an integrated cybersecurity role in the EOC, stronger vendor controls, failover EOC capability and more AI‑focused training; officials also reported a recent tax‑office server crash that was repaired and is under review.
County IT staff on Nov. 10 briefed Kerr County Commissioners Court on integrating cybersecurity personnel into the Emergency Operations Center and on steps to reduce future ransomware and vendor‑access risks.
Tyler (IT presenter) summarized a TEEX/FEMA curriculum the county used, saying the training treats IT as an operations role in the EOC during major incidents rather than only as support. "If the county were hit by ransomware, I believe the average was a total downtime of 24 days," he said, adding that attack windows have tightened and AI shortened some attack cycles from "48 minutes to 51 seconds" in the examples shown during training.
Corey Tennis and other IT staff said the county is drafting incident‑response plans, network maps and event action plans based on TEEX recommendations, and is considering a secondary EOC as a failover. Commissioners raised concerns about having a common operational picture for volunteer fire departments and remote units; one commissioner urged the county to explore WinTac or equivalent platforms to provide real‑time operational overlays to firefighters.
In related business, County Tax Assessor/Collector reported a server crash affecting property tax software on Oct. 29 that was restored by Oct. 31; staff said backups are run nightly, that the office lost records for a roughly four‑hour window, and that the office is reconciling cash payments and asking residents with receipts to come forward. The tax office said it does not believe the crash was malicious and has notified the auditor.
Commissioners praised the IT team's after‑action work and asked staff to continue training, finalize EOC IT plans and brief the court on progress. An AI‑focused presentation is scheduled Dec. 10 to go deeper into voice‑synthesis and other emergent threats.