Pennsylvania’s Luzerne County still facing problems due to the cyber attack

Ongoing problems still persist with computer network of Pennsylvania's Luzerne County after the cyberattack impacted Luzerne County's correctional facility, where the inmates are not able to order the items from jail commissary.

Most of the computer systems of the county were shut down, after finding on May 25, 2019, that some computers in courthouse network got infected by a virus. The main computer network - both work stations and servers - of the county government was shut down by the administration as a precaution in order to stop the virus from spreading, thus preventing the workers from uploading the information managed by their departments, which includes civil court filings, property assessment changes and deed recordings.

Computers of county jail, on the Water Street in Pennsylvania's Wilkes-Barre city, were restored on June 6, 2019. However, the system got slowed down during the weekend and then finally stopped working on June 10, 2019, said county director of corrections, Mark Rockovich.

Rockovich said that jail's daily operations were impacted by ongoing computer outage, thus requiring the administrators to assign additional manpower for performing the tasks manually. He has confirmed that computer problems have been preventing the inmates from ordering the commissary items, like snack food and clothing. Inmates pay for the commissary items from their own money, added Rockovich.

Rockovich credited the staff of jail, especially records division, for adapting well to the forced changes in the work protocol in the last few weeks. "We are using our plans for not having computers at this time. Is it extra work? Yes. Is it more manual labor? Yes," said Rockovich.

On Jun. 10, 2019, County Administrative Services Director David Parsnik said that the information technology workers as well as consultants of the county are finding and then fixing the problems while examining each of the several hundred possibly infected county-issued computers. He said that "we are working on it. We are trying to restore them as quick as we can and we are making progress".

However, this cyber attack will result in more security measures as well as additional training for the county employees, said David Pedri, the county manager. "We will be working to upgrade our existing firewall," he said.

» SPAMfighter News - 6/25/2019