Concurrent Technologies Corp., a research nonprofit with cybersecurity expertise, received a $250,000 state grant for the first phase of its work, which focuses on identifying vulnerabilities and suggesting solutions.
State Sen. Nick Miller, who serves as the minority chair of the Senate Communications and Technology Committee, helped secure the grant. He spoke Thursday to seniors at Lehigh Valley Active Life in Allentown.
“This has been a priority for my office, making sure that your information and the systems that the county operate are protected,” said Miller, D-Lehigh.
Lehigh Carbon Community College is still recovering from a recent data breach that shut the school down for more than a week, reminding Lehigh Valley residents that cyberattacks on civic infrastructure have increased. Miller said he has not yet received a briefing on the LCCC data breach.
Other recent cyberattacks include a 2025 ransomware attack that targeted the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General. That led to case delays as attorneys found themselves unable to contact witnesses, produce discovery or respond to filings.
On the county level, Bucks County suffered a nine-day 911 outage following a ransomware attack in 2024. Emergency dispatchers had to switch to manual backup systems.
In 2023, hackers linked to Iran breached a control system that regulated water pressure at the Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa in Beaver County. Miller told The Morning Call that he was already an elected official at the time and the incident made an impression, motivating him to work to safeguard utilities.
An office like the Pennsylvania attorney general’s has a significant IT budget, while counties often have far fewer resources, CTC Vice President of Digital Mission Solutions Kevin Pudliner said.
Pudliner, who will act as project manager for the Lehigh and Northampton County work, said one advantage of working with a nonprofit versus a private cybersecurity firm is that CTC does not produce or market any of its own products, but rather seeks to steer clients to tools that will meet their needs.
“We are looking for the best-case scenario,” Pudliner said. “We’re not biased toward any particular products.”
CTC is headquartered in Johnstown, Cambria County, but most of its work consists of federal contracts with intelligence and defense agencies, so it maintains offices in cities including Washington and Baltimore.
Pudliner said it’s rare for him to be able to speak publicly about his projects.
Communication with the public will be an important part of the Lehigh and Northampton work, as part of the goal is to secure county databases that handle sensitive taxpayer information and safeguard election-related infrastructure.
On elections, one priority would be to prevent any interference with data that is transmitted from polling stations to the county’s election reporting database, Pudliner said.
“We should be able to lock down all those systems,” he said.
When asked Thursday about the possibility that voting systems could be hacked, Miller said, “Our elections are safe and secure.”
Miller assured the audience that his caucus is working with the governor to monitor the state’s election systems in advance of the November midterms and to keep those systems protected from undue interference, whether that interference were to come from outside actors or from the federal government.
Assessing Where Risks Lie
At Lehigh Valley Active Life, infrastructure and election security were just two of the topics raised, as all the attendees raised their hand when asked if they had personally been a victim of an attempted scam.
“It’s a mess,” said Pat Chiavetta, a 78-year-old resident of Catasauqua, who added that technology is advancing so quickly it’s simply too difficult for members of the public to know what is real and what isn’t as scams spread via phone calls, texts and emails.
Dealing with the consequences of cyberattacks isn’t new for Chiavetta. She estimated that it’s been nearly 20 years since she was working on payroll for the engineering company Foster Wheeler when an attack caused a major disruption and she had to help restore the databases that stored employee data.
Miller said he knows the grant-funded risk assessment will need to include training for county employees to ensure they do not take actions that would enable hackers to cause damage.
The initial grant does not provide money for hardware or software upgrades, but Miller is hoping it’s merely the first step in making Lehigh and Northampton counties a model for what Pennsylvania counties can do to up their cybersecurity game. He sees the work as a pilot that could inspire state investment across other counties and eventually at the municipal level as well.
Pudliner said “quick wins” could be possible for Lehigh and Northampton counties as the project works to ensure basic precautions are in place, such as adequate password protections on the systems that govern water and energy infrastructure.
Last session’s monthslong state budget impasse delayed the start of the work. Now that state funds, which have been allocated through the Department of Community & Economic Development, are available, Miller and Pudliner said they’re optimistic that the risk assessment will move quickly and that further grants could be available from the current budget cycle.
© 2026 The Morning Call. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
