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LaPorte County commissioners approve mandatory cybersecurity training; accounts may be locked until completed
Summary
The board authorized a policy requiring all county employees to complete state-provided cybersecurity/phishing training; commissioners set a June 30 deadline and authorized locking network accounts for employees who do not finish training by that date.
Sherlyn Hale, Porter County IT director, told the LaPorte County Board of Commissioners on June 3 that recurring phishing training sent to county employees needs enforcement: she asked the board to authorize a policy that could lock an employee's network account if the training is not completed after a deadline.
The commissioners moved to allow IT to require completion of the state-provided cybersecurity modules and to disable network access for employees who fail to finish by the deadline. The original due date cited in Hale's materials was June 12; the board amended the motion and set the deadline at June 30 to give employees more time, and approved the policy by voice vote.
Hale said the training totals roughly two hours across multiple short modules and is paid for through the state program; she told commissioners some modules are as short as three to five minutes while one is about a half hour. "We'd like to lock their account and not let them log into the network until they...complete their training," she said, describing how the proposed enforcement would work.
County staff will implement the policy through existing account controls. Commissioners discussed reasonable timing and agreed on the June 30 deadline; the motion included authority for IT to restrict access only after the specified due date. The board did not adopt an ordinance; commissioners instructed staff to set the policy and proceed with communication to departments.
