PEKIN, Ill. – Operations in Tazewell County government are nearly back to normal after a cyber attack in November affected phone and computer systems.
County Board Chairman David Zimmerman offered an update at Wednesday’s regular meeting on the attack.
He says only a couple items still need to be addressed. One involves getting an intranet system used by county employees for sick time and vacation day requests up and running again. The other is getting remote access again for township assessors with a software program that uses two-factor authentication.
Zimmerman says a report on the cyber attack itself is about “90% percent complete” and could be released within the next month.
“This report will show us that we probably need to invest a little more in I.T. moving forward. Tazewell County is traditionally a pretty lean county, and I think that’s great. But there’s some areas where being too lean can actually cost you more money in the long run,” Zimmerman said.
Zimmerman said a couple lessons have been learned from the cyber attack. One is making sure there’s enough staff to be able to cover a future attack, and the other is making sure county equipment is up-to-date.
The county board at the meeting also approved two emergency declarations that were made by Zimmerman in November and December related to the cyber attack. One involves a readjustment of an insurance premium rate based on the number of employees in the county, with the other authorizing spending that was reimbursed by the insurance provider’s rapid response team.
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