CHENANGO COUNTY – The Chenango County Board of Supervisors recently approved $200,000 to cover the costs of new software after the county’s computers were affected by a ransomware attack.

Chenango County Clerk of the Board RC Woodford said the cyber attack happened on October 18, and while the attackers were requesting approximately $90,000, paying the ransom wasn’t an option.

Woodford said the $200,000 basically covers software upgrades including new Windows 365 software for all 400 of the county’s computers along with some equipment upgrades. He said the annual cost wouldn’t likely be that high.

“After the attack essentially everything was taken offline, servers were scrubbed, and the machines were restored to a usable form,” said Woodford. “We wanted to make sure something like this would never happen again, so immediately after the attack we got a rough estimate together of what it would cost to make sure this isn’t a repeat issue.”

He said licensing requirements that require annual subscriptions will cause this to be an ongoing budget concern, and that some of the $200,000 budget line will be turned into operating costs in the future to keep the computers licensed.