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the town of Apex is still working
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through issues several months after a
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Cyber attack the hack happening last
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summer affected the town's utility
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billing process causing some residents
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to get double bills wr's Brett explains
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where things stand on fixing the issue
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there and some steps all organizations
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can take to protect themselves from
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future just two months into his job as
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the town manager of Apex Randy vosberg
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faced a Cyber attack took down a lot of
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our uh systems utility billing was one
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of those systems nearly 7 months after
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last Summer's attack the town continues
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to deal with issues with that system
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there's a light at the end of the tunnel
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um it's just it's a longer process
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because we want to make sure we're
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getting it right vosberg says all
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residents should be getting accurate
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bills at this point however just this
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week the town brought in an outside
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company to review its systems that
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company will run simulated bills for all
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30,000 residents to check for any
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lingering issues Apex is not the only
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local government entity in our area to
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face a Cyber attack in recent years in
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2020 Rocky Mount faced a similar attack
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that forced residents to pay their
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utility bill in person a hacker locked
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down chadam County's computer systems
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just a couple of months after that and
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in May of 2023 the Raleigh Housing
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Authority faced a ransomware attack
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these are threats local cyber security
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expert John sternstein says every
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organization is facing the problem with
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the smaller uh governments and towns is
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that they just don't have the resources
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to actually protect themselves cine says
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those resources can be expensive and
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there are options for organizations who
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can't afford a full-time employee
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dedicated to cyber security one of those
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is through the cyber security and
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infrastructure Security Agency or sisa
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they do free vulnerability scans for
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anyone that's part of the critical
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infrastructure sternstein says those
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scans come back quickly he says it's
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free resources like this that every
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organization should take advantage of to
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do what they can to protect from attacks
