Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1472190
8 SMT007 MAGAZINE I JULY 2022 Nolan's Notes by Nolan Johnson, I-CONNECT007 Data Security: It's Incumbent Upon You e news broke in Portland, Oregon, in May that the city government had suffered a "cyber- security breach" and lost $1.4 million in city funds. e city's official statement announced, "Preliminary evidence indicates that an unau- thorized, outside entity gained access to a City of Portland email account to conduct illegal activity." KATU-TV reported that the city's Office of Finance confirmed the breach occurred in late April with a fraudulent money transfer. e first transaction did not trigger a warn- ing flag, and the breach was not detected until that email account attempted a second transaction. Multnomah County's spokesperson Den- nis Tomlin told KATU, "It's not a matter of if you're going to get hit but a matter of when you're going to get hit. So, what's incumbent upon the county is to do as much as we pos- sibly can to reduce the risk of a serious event from occurring." We should note that the City of Portland encompasses most of Multnomah County, making Tomlin's comments even more meaningful. Andrea Peterson, reporting on the incident for e Record, referred to a similar attack on Erie, Colorado, in 2019, where it was believed that $1 million intended for a bridge project was stolen. ese are incidents from just two U.S. city governments, however, we know such attempts are widespread. As we spoke with cyberse- curity experts for this issue, the "human fac- tor" was a constant concern. Fraudulent email remains the number one method for hack- ers to gain access to a company's internal sys- tems. In fact, the FBI has issued two dire warn- ings, with the most recent detailing Business Email Compromise/Email Account Compro-