Islip Town working to restore computer system after 'unusual activity' was detected, supervisor Angie Carpenter says
Islip Town Supervisor Angie Carpenter said Tuesday it's unclear when the town's computer system will be fully restored. Credit: Newsday/Steve Pfost
Islip Town’s computer network, including email access, remains largely offline after officials said "unusual activity" was detected on the system late last week.
The town’s information technology department has been working around the clock to bring back the system, with a priority to restore email and payroll, Town Supervisor Angie Carpenter told Newsday. Officials have not released details of the activity, which was detected shortly before 6 a.m. Friday, but Carpenter said "the public was not compromised in any way."
It is unclear when the system will be fully restored, but Carpenter said the town was working to do so “as quickly as humanly possible.”
The investigation into what occurred is ongoing, and while the town has identified some possible causes of the activity, officials have not released specific details.
Town employees are fielding calls to the general phone number and filtering them into various departments the "best we can the old-fashioned way," Carpenter said.
"The normal way of doing business is affected because you can't use your computer," the supervisor said.
The town’s public safety department was not affected and was able to dispatch personnel as needed and most town phone lines remain working, Carpenter said. The town’s website was not affected because it is on a different system, she added.
The town's security software detected the activity and alerted the IT department that something was amiss, Carpenter said. IT workers immediately shut down the computer system, checking each of the town's more than 900 computers to see whether they were affected. Carpenter declined to say how many computers were impacted by the activity.
“It was the right move, and fortunately, there was no hesitation,” Carpenter said, speaking of the IT team. “It was sort of a reaffirmation for me of the incredible team we have in place. They know what they’re doing.”
Carpenter said the town carries insurance related to its computer system.
Carpenter said she was unsure whether the activity was related to the Suffolk County cyberattack on Sept. 8. County officials said last week the driver’s license numbers of 470,000 people who were issued moving violations in Suffolk during most of the past decade may have been exposed during the attack.
Islip Town's IT department has held internal debriefings since Friday and alerted both the federal and New York State divisions of the Department of Homeland Security, which is in step with protocol, Carpenter said.
Town council members and the state and federal Departments of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to Newsday inquiries.
While the town's computer system is offline, the IT department is scrubbing and rebuilding it in its entirety to minimize interconnections, so any future incidents of unusual activity can be isolated, Carpenter said.
“We did everything we possibly could, but there is no 100% way for anybody to be 100% immune from something like this,” she said, adding that in general, residents should be cautious about opening emailed links from unknown users or suspicious email addresses and change their passwords frequently to strong ones.
Brinley Hineman covers the Town of Hempstead and the City of Long Beach for Newsday. She previously was a reporter in Nashville, Tennessee, and is a West Virginia native.
