Borough works to recover after cyber-attack

As the Mat-Su Borough works to recover from a cyber-attack, officials say there is some good news.

On Monday, borough spokesperson Patty Sullivan issued a statement stating that the borough was able to hold on to most of its data. She says most borough data is backed up, and that those backups were not affected by the virus that took down the Mat-Su’s computer and phone systems.

In addition, Sullivan says credit card numbers of borough residents were not jeopardized, since card numbers are not stored on borough servers.

The attack itself was rather sophisticated, according to Eric Wyatt, IT Director for the borough. In a status update made public this week, Wyatt called the cyber-attack “insidious” and “well-organized.” He says the attacker is “not a kid in his mom’s basement,” but rather a sophisticated and likely well-funded entity. Wyatt has thirty-five years of IT experience, including with the Department of Defense, and says he has never seen an attack quite like this one.

The Mat-Su was one of over 200 organizations affected by this virus. The FBI and other agencies are involved in the investigation to find the source.

As the investigation continues, the borough is working to get services back online. The external website has remained up and running. According to Patty Sullivan, borough phones are coming back online, and were mostly working again at the main administrative building in Palmer as of Monday. Employee computers are being purged of the virus and made ready for use again, and the myProperty function of the borough website is back online, but with some limitations. The borough’s email exchange server is also being rebuilt.

Eric Wyatt sat down for an interview with Radio Free Palmer on Monday. That interview is available here.