County improves internet security

By Terry Murry on Monday, August 7th, 2023 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories

UMATILLA COUNTY – The Umatilla County Board of Commissioners has approved spending $31,545.50 to purchase multi-factor authentication capability for its employees. The amount reflects an increase of about $20,000 due to changes in requirements from Criminal Justice Information Services. The board agreed the service is essential.

“If you don’t have that in place, the best you can do for insurance coverage is $50,000,” Commissioner John Shafer said. “If you have those things, including multi-factor authentication in place, you can get significantly more.”

Shafer said one Oregon county that had its data hijacked had to pay $400,000 to get it back. That county didn’t have insurance against hackers.

“They didn’t have the insurance because they didn’t have multi-factor authentication,” he said. “It cost them out-of-pocket $400,000. If you have those things in place then insurance is going to pay for that.”