Lindenhurst program to protect data from hackers, natural disasters

The Village of Lindenhurst is creating a computer network recovery program to protect data from hackers and natural disasters.

The board of trustees voted to adopt the Disaster Recovery Program on the recommendation of Village Treasurer Louise Schrader. The program has five components: critical data recovery; off- and on-premise backup; third-party vendor remote access; password changes and deletion of users; and financial program access.

Adept Technology Consulting Inc. of Hauppauge, already under contract with the village for other work, will monitor backups, updates and firewalls, and the village will keep backups of the servers. Adept will also confirm off-premise backups, which will be done daily and stored in a secure site run by mozy.com. Technicians from software manufacturers will be granted remote access, which will be logged, with the village treasurer, deputy treasurer or administrator present for any maintenance or repairs. Passwords must be changed every 30 days, and former village employees will be purged from user access of the network.

Mayor Mike Lavorata said officials are trying to be proactive.

“I’m always concerned that we make sure that we’re protected,” Lavorata said, adding that with Adept he wants “to take the onus off us as a village by having a safeguard in place.”
The mayor said the contract with Adept still needs to be finalized.