Bucks County officials believe 'Akira' is behind cyber incident that's impacting 911 dispatch system
In a letter to police, fire and EMS chiefs last week, the county said all phone and radio systems remain operational.
BUCKS COUNTY, Pennsylvania (WPVI) -- A cybersecurity incident that's impacting the 911 system in Bucks County remains under investigation.
Officials believe the ransomware group "Akira" is behind the attack.
In a letter to police, fire and EMS chiefs last week, the county said all phone and radio systems remain operational.
However, dispatchers are reportedly using pen and paper to take information from callers after the county's computer-aided dispatch system, known as CAD, was hit with a cyberattack.
READ MORE: Cybersecurity incident impacting Bucks County's emergency communication system
Officials say progress is being made toward restoring the system.
Despite the incident, the county is still able to receive 911 calls and dispatch first responders immediately.
Action News spoke to a cybersecurity expert, who said most organizations have policies and procedures around responding to incidents like this.
"I would imagine they have a very clearly defined process of what constitutes a security event and how the teams are going to respond," Justin Drabouski, the director of security for Fraser Advanced Information Systems, said.
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"Really what they're doing at this point is probably going right down that checklist and following their own pre-determined plan."
Drabouski said the biggest potential risk the county could be looking at right now is the exposure of any data.
"I'm sure being a 911 system that would record personal information for people who call into the system, it probably records information related to law enforcement agencies and how they respond. All of that would be considered sensitive and private. They're going to try to determine if any of that data has been exposed as part of this incident," he said.
The county says it continues to work closely with third-party experts to conduct a thorough investigation.
