Nasty virus hit Vigo County’s computers

Feb. 13--Vigo County government was hacked with a nasty virus that prompted suspension of email and other internet activity -- including banking -- for a few days last week.

Information Technology Director Jeremy Snowden briefed the county's Board of Commissioners on Tuesday.

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 Ukraine last August, and Vigo County avoided such a fate, he said.

Pat Ralson, vice president for government relations, business and economic development at First Financial Bank said, "Financial institutions are constantly under attack by viruses. It's just an ongoing battle and I'm sure government's the same way ... So far we've been lucky."

Employee assistance

Commissioners on Tuesday also approved a contract with Hamilton Center for an employee assistance program.

Newly-elected Commissioner Brendan Kearns proposed the move and new Sheriff John Plasse said he was "shocked" recently when an employee needed mental health counseling and no one in his office knew who to contact.

"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 $80 each to include assessment, individual therapy and a medication management session, if necessary.

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 Judy Anderson. "This would give us a policy that would take care of these things."

County Attorney Michael Wright said a formal request for proposals is not needed because professional services are involved.

New info in tax bills

Commissioners approved contracts totaling $41,129 with Worrall Corp. of Indianapolis to print and mail property tax bills for 62,058 parcels this year.

The amount includes $1,473 to print information about the county's building permit requirements and costs on the back of each bill.

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.

Dave Taylor can be reached at 812-231-4299 or dave.taylor@tribstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @TribStarDave.

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