Hubbard’s trustees seek cybersecurity funding | News, sports, work

HUBBARD TOWNSHIP — Trustees said Bazetta Township’s loss of money on eight transactions to a phishing scam motivated them to apply for cybersecurity grant software packages through the state.

“They weren’t even hacked. Someone just sent the county a new bank account number and the county sent them $160,000,” board member Jason Tedrow said at a meeting earlier this month. “And speaking of tax dollars, they gave away $160,000 to someone we don’t even know at this point.”

In August, Bazetta’s tax official discovered as many as eight transactions totaling $160,857 that had been intercepted by an unknown person. Trumbull County Sheriff Paul Monroe later said law enforcement recovered some, but not all, of the funds.

The district auditor and Bazett’s trustees have retained legal counsel to represent them in the matter because half of the funds are still missing.

The first grant applied for by Hubbard Trustee William Colletta earlier this month is a $10,800 cybersecurity software grant.

The second of the two grants is a mitigation grant totaling $5,852 that will change the municipality’s Internet domain from .us to .gov.

While .us domains can be registered by anyone, including private entities for a fee, and are managed by Registry Services, LLC, on behalf of the U.S. Department of Commerce, .gov domains are free and available only to U.S. government organizations. can also only be registered via an authorization letter addressed to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency).

The state’s cybersecurity grant was announced earlier this year when Gov. Mike DeWine announced he would provide $7 million through CyberOhio to support municipalities with cybersecurity software and services to increase their preparedness and resilience. Eligible security software and services included endpoint protection, multi-factor authentication and secure email, as well as vulnerability management.

Colletta said a Team Office Technologies representative in Youngstown told him the state plans to require government agencies to develop a similar security system.

“We’re not on the cutting edge yet, but we’re in good shape because we’ve just started securing our emails with him (the rep), so hopefully we can continue that,” Colletta said.

Hubbard isn’t the only city looking to increase its online presence.

Matthew Connelly, Liberty Township’s fiscal officer, said he received an email from the state about the grant a month earlier, but their interest and decision coincidentally coincided with the incident.

Connelly said he has only received one phishing email per year in his three years with the office, but he can point to them because the state recently mandated fraud training for all employees through the auditor’s office.

Connelly, who applied for the grant earlier this month with the help of local IT specialist Joel Davis, said it would take 30 days to verify whether he received the money. They expect to receive $29,500 from both grants they applied for, but they have estimated the cost at $25,000.