ST. LOUIS OCUNTY, Mo. – The St. Louis County Council approves spending millions of dollars to help improve the county’s cybersecurity systems. This comes after hackers breached an important law enforcement system last month.
This was a big financial move by county council members Tuesday night. The council voted to spend $5 million to help beef up cybersecurity.
Council member Ernie Trakas was a main sponsor of the measure. Described as an “emergency appropriation,” Trakas says the funds will be used for improvements, including figuring out and fixing weaknesses in the county’s systems, buying new technology, and hiring consultants to transfer information technology capabilities from servers to the cloud.
Trakas concedes that the $5 million will basically drain the county’s emergency savings, but Trakas made the case that the major expense is worth it to shore up the county’s cybersecurity systems against future attacks. Council members approved the measure unanimously.
This all came to the forefront after a cyberattack last month targeted the Regional Justice Information System, commonly known as ‘REGIS.’ That computer system is used to look up court cases, issue charges, and process people in custody at jails. The cyberattack caused the REGIS system to temporarily shut down last month.
FOX 2’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch partners reported that during the hack, the county was booking and releasing people from jail on paper instead of doing it electronically. A REGIS spokepserson told FOX 2 last month that it did not appear that any sensitive information was taken or released.
It’s understood that the REGIS system was down for at least 24 hours.