Nasty virus hit Vigo County’s computers
Information Technology Director
The virus infiltrated the county's computer network via an email, Snowden said.
"We see this every day," he said. "However, the rate at which it spread and how bad it hit us was pretty uncommon."
Calling it a "the worst type of virus," Snowden said its sole purpose is to steal financial data. The virus capitalized on a vulnerability that 129 of 489 county computers did not have a patch for, he said.
Most of the affected devices were in the courthouse instead of the county government center, or annex.
"We got in front of it, were able to patch it [and] got hold of the company we work with," he said. "They were on the phone with us for three days -- eight, 10 hours a day. Luckily, we do not see that any data ... was lost, we did not have any compromise, our backups were in place (and) nothing appears to have been damaged."
As a precaution, Snowden asked the county treasurer and auditor to cease internal banking activity until he could be assured the situation was under control.
"No banking institutions notified us that anything occurred and ... as of today we can say that everything appears to be fine and working," he said.
Because of the attack, some of the county's computer systems were upgraded.
"We're actually running fail-safes that large governments utilize," Snowden said.
A similar virus shut down the entire government of
Employee assistance
Commissioners on Tuesday also approved a contract with
Newly-elected Commissioner
"There are people that deal with very traumatic situations that may need post incident counseling," said Kearns, previously a county councilman. "We had an exercise last fall and one recently where there were employees that were in need."
Kearns said he reached out to Hamilton Center and the facility agreed to provide up to five sessions at a cost to the county of
The agreement will address the county's immediate need pending development of a comprehensive plan by Hamilton Center and/or the county's health insurance provider.
The service will be available to all 650 county employees regardless of whether they are covered by the county's insurance.
"Before, we have taken care of our people but we did it just individually as needed," said Commissioner
County Attorney
New info in tax bills
Commissioners approved contracts totaling
The amount includes
Anderson said the goal is to reduce the number of appeals concerning fines assessed for violating those requirements.
Tax bills are scheduled to go out in April with installment payments due in May and November.
___
(c)2019 The Tribune-Star (Terre Haute, Ind.)
Visit The Tribune-Star (Terre Haute, Ind.) at tribstar.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
ReWalk Announces Cigna as First Private U.S. Insurer to Adopt National Policy Change for Coverage of Personal Exoskeleton Devices
Liberty Health Sciences To Open New Dispensary In North Miami, Bringing Total Number Of Stores In Florida To Nine
Advisor News
Annuity News
Health/Employee Benefits News
Life Insurance News