Manchester board member asks what happens if a cyberattack gets through

A Manchester-by-the-Sea Select Board member wants to know how town services would keep running if hackers got past the town's defenses.

Vice Chair Catherine Bilotta raised the question at the board's Sept. 21 meeting. She pointed to recent technology outages in Springfield and Everett that disrupted municipal services. "I think they were hacks, cyber incidents," she said.

Bilotta said those communities did not appear to have been ready with backup plans, and it made her wonder how prepared Manchester is. She asked Town Administrator Tony Barletta, and possibly Finance Director Andrea Mainville, to brief the board on the town's emergency plans for any kind of technology outage.

Prevention versus a backup plan

Barletta said the town takes part in a regional technology collaborative. Through it, he said, Manchester gets "a ton of cyber security" trainings and has infrastructure installed to help prevent attacks.

Bilotta said that was not her question. She wants to know what the town would do if an attack succeeded.

"What are our backup procedures?" she asked. "Just like you do emergency preparedness for a weather event, there should be emergency preparedness for cyber events."

She also mentioned an Amtrak outage that day, which she said was caused by a cut cable, as an example of how a technology failure can shut things down.

Open or closed session

Bilotta said the briefing might belong in executive session because some details could be sensitive. She left that decision to Barletta.

Barletta said he would find out whether the discussion can be held in open session or must be held in executive session. No date was set.

Computers in the capital plan

Later in the meeting, during a review of the town's capital plan, Barletta said staff still plan to add a schedule for replacing computers, servers and printers. Bilotta said software was her bigger worry, and Barletta agreed software subscriptions should be counted, since they are an ongoing commitment.