MASON CITY – Want “Cheap jerseys from china”? You could’ve shopped for ’em today on the county website.
Cerro Gordo County Administrative Officer, Tom Drzycimski, confirmed today that there was a problem with the county’s website, located at http://www.co.cerro-gordo.ia.us, and that it was indeed compromised. It appears the issue happened after employees left work Tuesday and before they came into work Wednesday.
“I’ve been advised of (the issue with the county website) and understand that the issue was resolved within the first half-hour of the work day,” Mr. Drzycimski told NIT this afternoon.
The county’s IT department didn’t respond to a question from NIT regarding the incident.
Until the problem was discovered and resolved this morning, however, the Cerro Gordo County website was selling “Cheap jerseys from china” and similar selling points.
An NIT reader sent “a print screen of” the county website’s home page, along with the humorous line “I see that Jay Urdahl found a new way to make money or the Cerro Gordo county computer systems were hacked”.
The site appears to be back to normal, now.
Ironically, in an incident that took place about 3 years ago, an attempt to access and divert funds from a bank used by Cerro Gordo county took place in February of 2013. Employee data – mainly limited to workers who use direct deposit with their paychecks – that may have been lost during the attack could have included bank account numbers, bank routing numbers and social security numbers. County Treasurer Pat Wright told NIT at that time that strict “barriers” at the local bank protected the county’s account from a more successful attack.
“The barriers seemed like a hassle but it prevented the attack from being successful,” Wright said back in 2013.
The county then took steps to ensure that any such attempt in the future would not get as far as that one did.
Mr. Drzycimski told NIT that “I will be looking into some more to get additional details,” in connection to the security of the county’s website and today’s incident.
Crap, I was going to buy one. With all the people that wear them in the mug shots, they must be very fashionable.