County IT Manager Randy Herbert was the first to address the county leaders and requested that additional security measures be taken regarding county offices computer use. Herbert said that Rush County has taken a number of pro-active measures to prevent unauthorized access to county records while at the same time no computer system is completely safe.
“There is always an ongoing concern for a cyber-attack on our computer system. We (Rush County) have thick firewalls and implemented a number of security measures. We have off-site storage backup, however, we currently don’t block social media outlets such as Facebook and twitter from county office computers,” Herbert said.
He continued by saying that many attempts to gain unauthorized access to information is the result of the virus that attack computers through social media sites.
“The most secure way to prevent a virus affecting computer use is to get the county computers that use social media sites off the county network. We need to take every layer possible to keep viruses out,” Herbert said.
During a discussion with the county leaders and Herbert, it was determined that the Rush County Sheriff’s Department, possibly the prosecutor’s office and community corrections are in need of access to social media as a means of investigations and may need access. Herbert recommended that a separate outside internet service not attached to the county server be used.
The commissioners agreed with Herbert’s recommendation and approved the added security measure.
©2016 The Rushville Republican (Rushville, Ind.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
