City to invest nearly $21,000 in cyber security

QUINCY (WGEM) - Quincy City Council approved a recommendation by its Technology Committee and IT Manager to increase the overall cyber security of the City of Quincy.

This approval comes a week after city residents were notified that their personal information like name, address, social security number and health insurance information were all accessed by whoever attacked the city’s cyber security.

Mayor Mike Troup said on multiple occasions that it did not appear any personal information about city employees, residents or customers were stolen in the attack.

Now more than four months later, several residents have expressed concern about the lack of receiving a warning from the city back in May, to let them know to protect their personal accounts in case their information was breached in the attack.

Troup said he wouldn’t have communicated any differently.

“There’s no sense in worrying people before we really know what the facts are,” Troup said. “So no I don’t think there was any value in making any kind of notice or assuming that there is going to be some problem any earlier than we did.”

The nearly $21,000 alderman approved Monday night is for a multifactor authentication solution the Technology Committee recommends will increase the overall security to the City of Quincy’s infrastructure.

The city of Quincy reported back on May 7 that their computer, emails and phone systems between multiple departments were down.

Then on May 24, Troup announced their systems were down due to a ransomware attack, where he said, “It does not appear that any information was taken from our system that would harm any individuals.”

And last Monday, Sept. 19, he announced that 6,078 individual accounts were accessed by the attacker.

He said each person affected has received a notice from the city with options on what they can do to protect their accounts from identity theft or fraud, and with how the city is protecting itself so an attack like this won’t happen again.

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