Dubuque, Iowa, February 18, 2025 –Dubuque County dodges two cyberattacks, prompting the IT director’s urgent call for software upgrades and a shift to cloud security.
Dubuque County narrowly avoided disaster after facing two chilling cybersecurity threats within just five weeks. Despite the close calls, IT Director Nathan Gilmore issued a stark warning: “Trust no one—not even your partners.”
The first scare came when a county employee accessed a state government website that redirected to a third-party site laced with malware. Gilmore explained:
That free website had all kinds of ads popping up, and one of those ads had infected malware injected into it.
Swift action with the state IT team prevented a breach, and the files were relocated to a secure state server. The second incident struck Gilmore and Sheriff Joe Kennedy’s inboxes—an email from a known contractor, later flagged by the sender’s IT team as a compromised account. “This was from us, but it is not legit. Please delete,” read the urgent follow-up message.
Although no damage occurred, Gilmore insists these near-misses highlight a dangerous truth:
Unfortunately, we’re at a point where you can’t even trust government partners or longtime vendors.
He’s pushing for a $404,181.51 overhaul, including cloud computing services to bolster defenses and modernize systems.
However, Supervisor Wayne Kenniker is cautious about new spending, stating:
With $630,000 in ongoing projects, we need to finish those before committing to more.
The proposed upgrades promise stronger firewalls and secure remote data storage, using the current data center as a backup.
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