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Southern Progressives
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State News:
Our local legislators think if they don't hear from us the legislation they are putting out must be OK, if you disagree with them, let them know to make them more aware of the people they represent.
Local News:
The City of Etowah’s e-mail services have experienced issues since December due to a problem with the host company.
Employees of the City of Etowah have been having to operate using generic e-mail addresses due to Rackspace, a company which hosts e-mail services, being hit by ransomware. It was stressed that nothing related to the city was compromised as a result of the ransomware.
“Our e-mail is hosted through a company that we contract with called Local Government and they use a company called Rackspace to host their e-mail exchange servers,” said Etowah City Manager Russ Blair. “Rackspace has clients all across the country, such as corporate clients and other local governments, and they were subject to a catastrophic ransom incident where they were locked out of all of their e-mail servers.”
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), ransomware is a “malicious software, or malware, that prevents you from accessing your computer files, systems or networks and demands you pay a ransom for their return.”
“In the first part of December our e-mail was out and not functional for about 10 days,” Blair noted. “They were trying to work through a temporary fix which they arrived at and moved us over to a temporary server, which they assigned us temporary e-mail addresses. We have been somewhat functional but it has led to consistency problems sending and receiving e-mails on our end.”
While Rackspace was hit with the ransomware, Blair said nothing related to the city was compromised.
“The plan is for Rackspace to no longer be hosting e-mail for us and our IT department, Local Government, is in the process of converting us over to an Office 360 host exchange,” Blair stated. “There was a period of time where we just weren’t able to receive e-mail, so there could have been citizens trying to reach city departments and weren’t able to get through. For the time being that is resolved and we are hoping to have that fixed sooner rather than later.”
Though they currently have access to a semi-functional substitute, Blair stressed that it hasn’t been reliable.
“Citizens should still be able to communicate with us through e-mail but if a reasonable amount of time passes washout them getting a response then I recommend they call city hall or the various department they are trying to reach,” he expressed. “All of the relevant information is available on the City of Etowah website.”
Looking ahead, Blair hopes the new systems will provide better and safer services for the city.
“I don’t think anybody is ever immune from potential ransomware situations but hopefully this is a more secure and more reliable arrangement,” said Blair. “We are hoping that the permanent solution to this happens soon.”
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