Data Privacy & Security Service
Issue 12
COMPTROLLER’S CORNER
• Update the District’s IT policies. • Require District employees to attend cyber- security and awareness training. • Monitor Internet usage and configure the web filtering software to block access to sites that violate the acceptable use policy. • Address the IT recommendations communicated confidentially Please use this link to access the full Report of Examination for the Cai- ro-Durham Central School District: http://www.osc.state.ny.us/localgov/audits/ schools/2018/cairo-durham.pdf
The Cairo-Durham Central School District au- dit was released on February 16, 2018. The key findings of the report focused on IT-related policies and web access and determined the following: • IT-related policies were not ade- quate. • Users accessed websites unre-
lated to business activities, and web filters were not adequate.
Recommendations to address these issues were provided. The auditors rec- ommended the district implement the following measures:
City of Atlanta Attacked by Ransomware
A ransomware attack shut down the City of Atlanta’s online systems on March 22. Six days later forms were being filled out by hand, residents could not pay their parking tickets or water bills, and all
schedule. Court dates sched- uled between March 22 and April 16 had to be reset and reset dates had to be sent via snail mail. Systems are still not up and running in Atlanta, almost a
systems had to be re-built from the ground up. This demonstrates how devas- tating a ransomware attack of this magnitude can be. Govern- ment agencies need to learn from this, see what they can do to protect themselves and have contingency plans if it happens. Six Tips for Spring Cleaning Your Security System 1. Patch Often 2. Change Passwords 3. Pare Down Privileges 4. Audit Dispensible Data 5. Awareness Training 6. Review Security Policies Read the full article at this link.
month after the date the attack oc- curred. The City of Atlanta has spent 2.7 million dollars to fix their munici- pal computer systems,
scheduled court cas- es were effectively cancelled. Applica- tions for city jobs were halt- ed. Having to
turn to manual paper forms for processing has had a lasting impact. Atlanta Municipal court finally opened on April 16, but they are still using paper to
a significantly larger dollar amount than the $50,000 ran- som demanded by attackers. Experts believe such high spending may indicate Atlanta
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