Mat-Su prepared for Putin cyber attacks, borough says

Having been burned by hackers in 2018, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough is now pumped and primed to hold off cyber attacks from Vladimir Putin.

Eric Wyatt, the borough’s IT manager, said upgrades and cyber defenses have been put in place since the 2018 attacks. Help has also been extended from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which is helping coordinate information sharing with other Alaska municipalities and the state who now have similar protections in place.

This includes help from federal agencies in round-the-clock monitoring of systems and an alert when suspicious activity is detected, which is often, Wyatt said.

With his military forces bogged down in Ukraine Putin has resorted to killing civilians with long-distance artillery and rockets. He is infuriated by continued support for Ukraine by NATO and the U.S. in supplying defensive weapons to the nation, who is putting up a heroic defense.

President Joe Biden has warned that a frustrated Putin may launch cyber attacks on the U.S. Wyatt says he and other IT managers in Alaska with municipalities, utilities and commercial companies are now on hyper-alert.

The Matanuska Susitna Borough is now detecting an increasing number of attempts to penetrate cyber defenses coming from Russia as well as China, Wyatt said.

“We see them scanning our systems but so far they have been unable to penetrate the defenses,” he said. There has also been a recent sharp uptick in “fishing” emails, which are another method hackers use to penetrate networks.

Meanwhile, a bill just passed by the Legislature sponsored by Mat-Su state Rep. DeLena Johnson, R-Palmer, would lend immediate state assistance to municipalities under cyber attack, and this will be of great help if and when an attack comes, Wyatt said.

“We’ve also gone to our hardware and software vendors to alert them to be ready to issue ‘patches,’ to repair systems if the attackers to penetrate defenses,” he said.

Johnson said cyber attacks could be debilitating to Alaska’s infrastructure, including power grids, communication networks as well as the Trans Alaska Pipeline System. “Many state agencies and municipalities have experienced attacks over the last few years, costing millions of state dollars and disrupting public services,” she said.

The 2018 Mat-Su attack, which came from Russia, China and criminal gangs, disrupted telephone service and access to the borough’s tax and financial data as well as GIS systems, which many Mat-Su residents use.

It took about 60 days to get systems restored and running again, and the cost came to about $2.5 million, Wyatt said. The borough had to pay because there was no mechanism for state or federal assistance at the time.

HB 3 will change that as soon as Gov. Mike Dunleavy signs the bill. Johnson’s legislation amends the state’s current Disaster Act by adding cyber-attacks as a category of disaster, which will allow access to state resources.

“The passage of HB 3 underscores the very real and very serious nature of potential cyber-attacks on our state, particularly with the events happening in Europe. This is an issue that can affect all Alaskans and I’m happy to see this bill pass the legislature,” Johnson said.

Valdez suffered an attack and service disruption at about the time of the attack in Mat-Su, and there have been attacks since then on state agencies like the departments of Health and Social Services and Law, Wyatt said.

Private companies have also experienced attacks, but those were not publicized, he said.