Pennsylvania Counties Dealing With Cyber Incidents

Pennsylvania’s Bucks County reported that it is continuing to investigate a cybersecurity incident that caused an extended outage of the Emergency Communications’ Department’s computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system beginning last Sunday night.

The county said all systems are operational and 911 calls are still being received and dispatched to first responders immediately. However, ABC news reported that dispatchers are having to use pen and paper to take information from callers instead of relying on the computer-aided dispatch system.

All county fire, emergency medical services, and police departments in the county were notified.

“I want both the public and our first responder partners to know that our 911 system is up and running – If you call us for an emergency response, our dispatchers will get you the help you need,” said Bucks County Emergency Services Director Audrey Kenny in an update on Tuesday.

Kenny said the county has partnered with state and federal agencies, and has retained incident response professionals to assist in the investigation.

It was the second recent cyber incident at the Bucks County emergency department. The county reported another incident on December 21, when it said the 911 system began experiencing technical issues at 10 a.m. By 12:15 p.m. the same day, the department said all service had been restored.

Meanwhile, Washington County on January 24 at about 1:00 p.m. reported that it was experiencing network outages that are impacting the county government including the court, following a “phishing” activity on its server. The shutdown has affected county phones and computers, including restricting online access to court services and court records.

The jury duty line is among the lines not working. Jurors scheduled for Monday, January 29 have been excused. Jurors summoned for Thursday, February 1, have been told to report.