Oyster Bay inspector general working to restore town's computer system, official says

Oyster Bay Town’s inspector general is working to help restore the town’s computer systems after they were shut down on Dec. 3, town spokesman Brian Nevin said Thursday.

Newsday reported Wednesday that the town’s email system has been down since at least Monday, causing emails to town officials to bounce back as undeliverable. The town expects the email system to be fully restored by Saturday, Nevin said on Tuesday.

Nevin declined on Thursday to make Inspector General Brian Noone available to speak about the computer problems that have stretched into their seventh day.

"His priority is the recovery process right now," Nevin said in a text message.

Town Supervisor Joseph Saladino wrote in a 2019 letter to residents that Noone was "working to strengthen cybersecurity to protect the Town’s financial information from hackers."

Town officials have provided few details on the problems but Nevin wrote Thursday that "at this point" residents' Social Security numbers have not been compromised.

Oyster Bay Democratic leader David Mejias said in a statement Thursday he was concerned about the ongoing computer problems.

"The Town is responsible for safeguarding the personal information of its residents and any potential incident that compromises that information is of great concern," Mejias said.

The town has not said that the problems stem from a cyberattack but it has raised the possibility of such attacks in financial documents, stating in August that "as a recipient and provider of personal, private, or sensitive information, the Town faces multiple cyber threats including ... hacking, viruses, malware and other attacks."

Joel Caminer, director of cybersecurity education at New York University's Tandon School of Engineering said municipalities can face challenges because they may have "a lot of legacy technology that isn't necessarily as secure and is difficult to maintain and keep patched and updated."