"I sympathize with them," Fall River Information Technology Director Dawn Lewis said. "The city of Fall River has been on high alert making sure our security systems are updated, patched and being monitored closely. We do it all the time, but more so now. If we see anything questionable, we are honing in on it.
"We've got to be proactive and we're watching."
Over the past several years and with funding support from the City Council, Lewis and her staff have added security measures to protect the integrity of the city's IT network, said City Administrator Cathy Ann Viveiros.
"I know for a fact that we have limited access from outside the network to the computers here at Government Center," Viveiros said. "There have been limitations put on the kinds of sites and activities that we can engage in here."
With City Council support, the city has spent money on firewall software and other initiatives to protect technology and data. Lewis declined to identify specific software or strategies, not wanting to tip off the cyber bad guys.
Viveiros said the IT department has been working to bring departments using outlying email accounts into accounts sanctioned by the city.
A check of the Fall River municipal website shows that each department has a designated email account rather than individual staff emails.
"Again, we are really limiting outside access interference within our network," Viveiros said.
In New Bedford, the computer system has been compromised for a week. The problems started July 5, hampering city services tied to obtaining business certificates or shellfish licenses. By Thursday, city staff email accounts were up and running.
New Bedford has been quiet so far about whether its computer system may have been the victim of ransomware, which allows hackers to disable systems and demand payment to restore data.
NPR reported a bad summer for municipalities, with hackers attacking Baltimore, the Georgia court system and Lake City, Florida.
In 2013, the Swansea Police Department paid a $750 "ransom" to hackers to to decrypt several images and word documents in its computer system.
©2019 The Herald News, Fall River, Mass. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
