News Photo by Steve Schulwitz Alpena County Information Technology Director Eric Vanderveer reads a story about a cyber attack, while monitoring the county’s computer network Wednesday. He said the best way to thwart a cyber attack is to have staff trained on how to sport dangerous emails and to change passwords often. Alpena County and City of Alpena has also invested into making sure its security system is up to par.

ALPENA — It seems like there isn’t a day that goes by that there isn’t a report of a person, business, company or government agency that has been compromised by a computer hack or virus.

Once subjected to the threat you are often at the mercy of the people at the other end of the internet and the amount of damage that can be caused is significant. That is why local government agencies have implemented policies and practices to protect public information to be sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.

Eric Vanderveer is the information techonology director for Alpena and also works with City of Alpena on technology matters. He said the threat of being hacked, receiving ransomware or a virus is real and something to be taken seriously. He said having secure networks begins with employees knowing what to do, and not do, while on a computer, as well as spot something that appears suspicious.

“We make sure they all have strong passwards and that they are changed often. We monitor how often there are failed password attempts and then follow up with an employee who may have tried to enter the wrong one several times. Most often than not they just forgot it, but we watch it closely.”

Vanderveer said downloading software updates from the security company is also important, because hackers are always finding new ways to access vulnerable computers or networks.

“We make sure each computer is set to download the patches and install them once they are released,” he said.

Hackers often try to gain access to computers via email and by coaxing a user to click on a link or open a corrupt email. Vanderveer said staff does a pretty good job at detecting bogus emails and reporting them to him. He said that doesn’t mean there aren’t times when computers aren’t compromised however.

“We have had issues in the past, but nothing serious,” he said. “We have procedures to take once we have an issue and address it.”

Because the county shares some technology services with the city, Vanderveer said it is possible that viruses or other attacks could pass from one entity to another, but that it is unlikely. He said there are measures in place that protect one from the other, should a threat develop.

Vanderveer said people should be relieved to know that county, city and personal information is secure and backed up frequently He said he wasn’t comfortable going into specifics about the security used, because letting out too much information could open up the county to a hostile action.

Vanderveer said the board of commissioners, city council and its staff are committed to protecting and preserving its property and that of the residents. He said there has been and will continue to be investment made in cyber security moving forward.

Steve Schulwitz can be reached via email at sschulwitz@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5689. Follow Steve on Twitter ss_alpenanews.