Wichita is only one city on a long list that have faced a cyber attack in the last few years. It’s a growing problem that has local governments across the country doing their best to make sure their networks are secure. “There’s a lot of issues out there and you need to make sure you’re prepared for that,” said Kile Mangus who is the city manager for Derby. Derby is one of many places that faced a ransomware attack in the last few years. Mangus was working as the city manager when it happened in January 2023. He says it was shocking because the city had taken steps to be proactive and avoid this. “You had to go through your testing, you had to work with your consultant that was brought it, and so it was about a month for us,” he said. He says the biggest impact on the city was learning to really focus on securing the network and making sure there are no cracks in the system that a criminal may be able to slip through. “It’s just the realization of the investment we need to make in our infrastructure in our network. We had things planned on the horizon and I think we kind of picked up the pace for some of those things,” he said. He says this is unfortunately a reality many cities face and are constantly working against. “It’s something that’s very critical that everybody’s looking at and in our Kansas City manager conferences they’re addressing cyber security and talking more about options and things you can do to better prepare yourself for the future,” he said.
Source: KAKE – News
