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County administrator: VPN was hit with nearly 3,000 hits from identified external source; IT deployed fixes
Summary
Administrator Deb Erickson reported a targeted attack on the county VPN that generated nearly 3,000 hits from an identified external source; the IT team took the VPN down, pushed a new security solution and deployed it across machines in about 48 hours with no successful intrusion reported.
County Administrator Deborah Erickson told the board that the county experienced a cybersecurity incident affecting its virtual private network (VPN). "What we saw last week was there was an attack that was happening. In fact, just under 3,000 hits on our VPN that all generated from a source that was identified in Russia," Erickson said, adding the attack was not successful.
Erickson said IT took the VPN down as a precaution, accelerated rollout of a planned security product, and remotely pushed the new service to connected machines. "We accomplished it in the matter of less than 24 hours... deployed a much more secure solution in a period of about 48 hours," she said. County staff reported that the incident did not materially impact most employees' ability to work and that no known data compromise resulted. Erickson said other jurisdictions across the state experienced similar attacks and the county continues to monitor systems and coordinate with state partners.
The administrator delivered this update during a broader senior management briefing on building a multi-year long-range financial plan and expanding quarterly IT and facilities coordination.
