(County almost fully recovered from cyberattack)….Chairman of the County Board of Supervisors Ryan Kelley has issued a statement.

He says the Imperial County network is operational and communications have been restored. Kelley says a few information systems are experiencing hiccups that are being addressed daily. Kelley said the ransom demand in the cyber attack was for the county to pay $1.2 million in bitcoin, for a keycode to defragment their information. He said the ransom payment would require the same network rebuilt as is being completed now, to ensure the hacker group no longer had access to county systems. The estimated cost of this option was $4 million. The Board of Supervisors decided to not pay the ransom demand, and instead, rebuild the network. To date the county has expended $1.4 million to rebuild the network, and additional costs are expected. Kelley said insurance coverage will provide reimbursement for the majority of the costs associated with the rebuild. The investigation has resulted in identifying the computer that released the ransomware and infected the rest of the system. Steps have been taken to prevent any future attacks.