It will add a new layer of 24/7 cybersecurity for the county’s tower sites and radio dispatch consoles, Somerset County’s 911 Operations Manager Craig Hollis-Nicholson said.
But the $496,074 cost won’t impact Somerset County taxpayers, county officials said. Hollis-Nicholson said the price tag to provide the service for the next eight years is being covered by a Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency grant.
He said Motorola’s Managed Detection and Response includes additional hardware that will be added to the county’s Somerset operations center, while also adding safeguards outside the building.
Somerset County uses a radio communications network that utilizes eight towers and prominently placed building antennas for emergency communications.
Around-the-clock monitoring off-site by Motorola analysts will work to identify and block possible cyber threats, whether they are from a computer set up across the country or abroad, or even someone with ill intent who might try to gain access through the county’s East Union Street building.
“Even if someone tries to insert a USB drive into one of our computers to (broadcast) a message on our radio system, it will be blocked,” Hollis-Nicholson said.
Businesses and schools — and even the CodeRED “mass notification” mobile app that Somerset County and others across the country offered to notify the public about weather events and other incidents — have all been the targets of cyber attacks in recent years.
Somerset County Children & Youth Services data was targeted last summer, county commissioners said at the time.
The CodeRED app breach, which involved that company’s own database, led Somerset County to switch to a different provider – and is not in any way related to Tuesday’s vote to upgrade tower security, Hollis-Nicholson said.
But it was still a reminder that cyber criminals and ransomware schemers will target just about anything to try to gain information or cause havoc — and there’s no reason to believe Pennsylvania 911 systems are immune, he said.
A breach involving a Texas 911 system over the past several years grabbed emergency officials’ attention approximately a year ago, he added. Upgrades now getting underway were initially discussed in 2024 and ramped up after Motorola acquired a cybersecurity “Managed Detection” company, he said.
A Motorola subsidiary also maintains the 911 system Somerset County uses.
PEMA has stepped up for a number of counties to help them better protect their 911 communications systems, Hollis- Nicholson added. The state funding enabled Somerset County to budget the project for 2026, commissioners said.
Somerset County President Commissioner Brian Fochtman said the county’s eight years of coverage will hopefully make a difference.
“Like every other aspect of the county, we’re trying to protect (information and access) as much as we can,” he said.
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