The city of Dover’s state of emergency remains in place after nearly two weeks.
Dover’s city manager Dave Hugg said at a Monday’s City Council meeting there is no indication of a breach or compromise of city data or systems.
City employees as well as the state’s chief information security officer have been working together after being notified by a third party of potential unauthorized access in late January. Hugg said this was from a trusted third party performing a dark web review.
“[Dover’s website address or email] popped up on the web, which suggested somebody had tried, at least, to penetrate the system,” Hugg said.
Mayor Robin Christiansen put the state of emergency in place shortly thereafter. That gives the city the ability to perform any work necessary to address issues at hand. It also allows the city to employ outside workers and contractors.
“The state of emergency that I declared on the 29th of January remains in effect until we get a clean bill of health,” Christiansen said.
Dover’s IT department is conducting a comprehensive review of the city’s infrastructure security protocols and Office 365 security settings.
The city also consulted with Dover’s insurance carrier, a legal firm that specializes in cyber security and a forensic investigation company.
“Hopefully, their work will be completed in the next couple of days, this week, but all indications are that there is no breach of any of the city's data or systems,” Hugg said at the meeting Monday.
These issues follow but are not related to a data loss incident that began Jan. 15.
