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Monongalia County, W.Va., Partners With Tech Firm on Website Security

The county started considering this measure following an incident with the computer systems at Ruby Memorial Hospital in March 2016.

(TNS) -- The Monongalia County Commission will partner with a Fairmont business to improve website and online security.

During its Wednesday meeting, the commission gave the green light for its IT department to work with Fairmont-based firm Global Science & Technology on purchasing equipment and configuring the county’s network security.

“We’ve been exploring this for a couple of months,” county administrator Rennetta McClure said.

She added that the county started considering this measure following an incident with the computer systems at Ruby Memorial Hospital in March 2016.

The hospital was put on lockdown for four hours in the aftermath of an attack on the systems by malware or avirus, affecting 3,600 out of 14,000 computers at Ruby and outpatient clinics. Video monitors went down, necessitating the lockdown.

While this caused clinical delays, patient and staff information was kept safe.

Commissioner Tom Bloom said the work with Global Science & Technology will be conducted in phases, the first of which will cost $10,000-$20,000.

The commission also scheduled a public hearing regarding the removal of certain parcels from the University Town Centre Development District and amending its boundaries.

Commission president Ed Hawkins said this is being done to recalculate the base tax rate for the tax increment financing district (TIF). Some of the businesses at the development that are in the TIF district were already in operation before the TIF was formed, he said, and removing them will take them out of the formula when forming the new base rate.

The hearing was scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Aug. 2. Hawkins said the county and state were in agreement over the issue and no objections had been voiced so far.

“This is, more or less, housekeeping,” he said.

The commission also approved the re-appointment of Brian Helmick and Ryan Lynch to the West Run Planning District Board of Zoning Appeals. Their appointments were set to expire.

©2017 The Dominion Post (Morgantown, W.Va.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.