City IT Department addressing threats
John Moeckel, network administrator for Bella Vista, addressed the City Council during Monday’s work session and explained what he’s worked on and what he intends to do in the near future.
He put together something of a road map for the city’s newly-formed Information Technology Department.
“The first thing that I want to do is ensure we have security and stability in our infrastructure,” he said.
A backup system, he said, is the first thing to focus on, including a master unit to handle this task at the Police Department and a redundant backup at Fire Station 4.
With that second backup unit, he said, city workers could continue to carry out their duties from Station 4 should something catastrophic happen to City Hall.
He’s also working with department heads, he said, to establish a disaster-recovery system.
He’s hired a firm to perform vulnerability testing on the city’s computer systems.
“Basically it’s ethical hacking,” Moeckel said.
This testing, he said, has found a small number of vulnerabilities, which the city has now addressed, Mayor Peter Christie said.
It’s important to secure the city’s data, Moeckel said, because of a variety of growing threats, including ransomware. Ransomware, he said, is malicious software that allows unscrupulous individuals to hold a system’s data hostage until a fee is paid to release it — a ransom. As an industry is generating an estimated $1 billion annually.
Moreover he said, he has access to software that can scan a computer’s storage system to find valuable data and establish a black market value for all that data. With this, he said, he can find out which machines in the city’s network are the greatest risk and focus on making them secure first.
Beyond security, he said, work-flow improvements are on the to-do list.
“I want to reduce complexity and use a lot of cloud tools and things like that,” he said. “I want to make sure we purchase the right types of those tools.”
A system for video conferencing has been added to the Fire Department’s training room, he said, allowing fire and EMS personnel to watch train- ing sessions from other stations, without the need to spend money on fuel and put more wear on fire vehicles.
Standardizing, he said, is another good way to reduce costs. Until recently, he said, the city had three printer vendors, which he was able to reduce to one.
With only one vendor, he said, the city can save money by placing larger orders from that single supplier. It also allows calling for bids on supplies as a city rather than a department.
Looking further ahead, he said, the city needs to be considerate of hyper convergence — that is, the shrinking number of devices in use supplanted by individual devices that can handle a wider array of tasks. One example, he said, is the smartphone replacing most people’s camera, MP3 player, GPS device and more.
Along similar lines, he said, is a concept called “The Internet of Things.” With a growing number of items — including thermostats and even cars — connected to the web, the city could face additional security challenges down the road.
“As time goes on, the amount of data that we generate is going to grow exponentially,” Moeckel said. “It’s certainly both exciting and challenging to keep up with.”