Othello to conduct cyber security audit

OTHELLO — With an increase in cyber attacks and so many employees working from home, the city of Othello has decided to conduct a security audit of the city’s computer networks.

“I’m looking at our network, our water system and a few other things, and I recommend we get a security audit to do our best to make sure we are securely accessing our networks,” Abner Garza, Othello’s IT director, told members of the city council during a regular meeting on Monday.

The $11,500 audit, conducted by computer consulting firm Ednetics, will be paid for with some of the $250,000 the city received in COVID-19 relief funds passed by Congress in late March.

Garza also told council members that the city probably ought to do a yearly security audit.

The city also still holds a huge stockpile of protective masks that it ordered earlier in the year in hope that it could give them out to residents as they came to city hall, according to Mayor Shawn Logan.

Instead, Logan said, the city has given them out to police officers, firefighters and local businesses so that business owners could give them to customers.

— Charles H. Featherstone