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By Neil B. McGahee

Managing Editor

The Crisp County Board of Education met in a work session to discuss with Barry Doyle, technology director for the school system.

“Obviously, you have all seen the damage the [Crisp County Regional] hospital received,” he said. “It was a long fought battle and an expensive battle. It could very easily happen here.

He said that everyday the system is under threat of a cyber attack and about 25 Georgia have already been hit.

“It’s a two-pronged attack,” he said. “They penetrate your network, then they take over your network, without you knowing about it.

“After they enter, they steal sensitive data like financial records or personal records that you wouldn’t want exposed and post it on the Internet.

“They encrypt the hard drives and servers and bring the network completely to a stop. All file servers are just shut down. Then they will approach you and offer to sell your files back to you. The FBI said as a nation, more than $1 billion was paid last year.”

Doyle said the school system has a plan to replace the existing file servers as quickly as possible and get them on the shelves. This brings new servers with improved defense systems.

READ MORE IN THE WEDNESDAY EDITION OF THE CORDELE DISPATCH