H A P P Y I N D E P E N D E N C E D AY
H A P PY INDEPENDENCE DAY
Thursday, July 4, 2024 ~ Volume 69 ~ Issue Number 37 ~ $1.00
County Legislature Grapples with
Cybersecurity Issues
Amid Testimony from Lisa Black By Cait Crudden
The Suffolk County Legislature convened a crucial cybersecurity meeting, grappling with the aftermath of the 2022 ransomware attack that targeted the county’s systems. At the center of the discussion was testimony from Lisa Black, the former Chief Deputy County Executive, whose account of the events during the cyber-attack raised eyebrows and frustrations among lawmakers. The meeting, held in Riverhead, sought to shed light on the details surrounding the ransomware attack that crippled Suffolk County’s operations for several weeks in 2022. Lisa Black, a key figure during the crisis, appeared before the legislature and testified for nearly three-and-a-half hours. “We did a lot of very important work together and we can take pride in the fact that ultimately this event impacted less than 2% of county systems, all backups are retained or restored, or rebuilt, and this county did not pay a ransom to criminal actors,” said Black in Riverhead last week. The attack is known for taking multiple county systems and websites offline for months, as well as exposing the personal information of over 400,000 people. Black and former members of the previous administration continue to maintain that the compromising hack came from a specific type of vulnerability that originated in the County Clerk’s Office. Legislator Anthony Piccirillo (R-Holtsville) (Credit - Matt Meduri)
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West Islip Residents Protest Proposed Cell Tower By Matt Meduri
The proposed site of the cell tower by the northeastern onramp to the Robert Moses Causeway from Sunrise Highway (Credit - Crown Castle)
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FULL STORIES ON:
Carpenter’s Corner Page 3
Kennedy Releases School Bus Audits Page 4
Hundreds of West Islip residents attended a public hearing last Thursday on a proposed cell tower construction. Residents delivered overwhelming opposition to the plan and offered alternatives. The meeting was simply the first step in what could turn into a long and arduous process in Crown Castle Communications’ construction of a wireless telecommunications tower. The meeting was held to garner public input on the proposal. The proposal consists of a 102-foot-tall wireless cell tower on State-owned land at the northeastern onramp from Sunrise Highway (State Route 27) onto the Robert Moses Causeway. The proposed site is in the middle of a denselypopulated part of West Islip and along a major tourist route to Captree and Fire islands. Crown Castle has been New York’s Wireless Telecommunications Site Manager since 1997, pursuant to a contract administered by the New York State Police.
Grand Opening of Byron Lake Pool Page 22