{"id":179090,"date":"2026-01-16T17:26:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T22:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/16\/new-pact-will-up-911-cybersecurity-for-somerset-county-pa\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T17:40:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T22:40:09","slug":"new-pact-will-up-911-cybersecurity-for-somerset-county-pa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/16\/new-pact-will-up-911-cybersecurity-for-somerset-county-pa\/","title":{"rendered":"New Pact Will Up 911 Cybersecurity for Somerset County, Pa."},"content":{"rendered":"

New Pact Will Up 911 Cybersecurity for Somerset County, Pa.<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.govtech.com\/security\/new-pact-will-up-911-cybersecurity-for-somerset-county-pa<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-01-16 17:26:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.govtech.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Author: <\/a><\/p>\n

Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points. <\/p>\n

(TNS) \u2014 Somerset County is contracting with Motorola Solutions to better protect its emergency radio communications system from hackers.It will add a new layer of 24\/7 cybersecurity for the county\u2019s tower sites and radio dispatch consoles, Somerset County\u2019s 911 Operations Manager Craig Hollis-Nicholson said.But the $496,074 cost won\u2019t impact Somerset County taxpayers, county officials said. Hollis-Nicholson said the price tag to provide the service for the next eight years is being covered by a Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency grant.He said Motorola\u2019s Managed Detection and Response includes additional hardware that will be added to the county\u2019s Somerset operations center, while also adding safeguards outside the building.Somerset County uses a radio communications network that utilizes eight towers and prominently placed building antennas for emergency communications.Around-the-clock monitoring off-site by Motorola analysts will work to identify and block possible cyber threats, whether they are from a computer set up across the country or abroad, or even someone with ill intent who might try to gain access through the county\u2019s East Union Street building.\u201cEven if someone tries to insert a USB drive into one of our computers to (broadcast) a message on our radio system, it will be blocked,\u201d Hollis-Nicholson said.Businesses and schools \u2014 and even the CodeRED \u201cmass notification\u201d mobile app that Somerset County and others across the country offered to notify the public about weather events and other incidents \u2014 have all been the targets of cyber attacks in recent years.Somerset County Children & Youth Services data was targeted last summer, county commissioners said at the time.The CodeRED app breach, which involved that company\u2019s own database, led Somerset County to switch to a different provider \u2013 and is not in any way related to Tuesday\u2019s vote to upgrade tower security, Hollis-Nicholson said.But it was still a reminder that cyber criminals and ransomware schemers will target just about anything to try to gain information or cause havoc \u2014 and there\u2019s no reason to believe Pennsylvania 911 systems are immune, he said.A breach involving a Texas 911 system over the past several years grabbed emergency officials\u2019 attention approximately a year ago, he added. Upgrades now getting underway were initially discussed in 2024 and ramped up after Motorola acquired a cybersecurity \u201cManaged Detection\u201d company, he said.A Motorola subsidiary also maintains the 911 system Somerset County uses.PEMA has stepped up for a number of counties to help them better protect their 911 communications systems, Hollis- Nicholson added. The state funding enabled Somerset County to budget the project for 2026, commissioners said.Somerset County President Commissioner Brian Fochtman said the county\u2019s eight years of coverage will hopefully make a difference.\u201cLike every other aspect of the county, we\u2019re trying to protect (information and access) as much as we can,\u201d he said.\u00a92026 The Tribune-Democrat, Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Pact Will Up 911 Cybersecurity for Somerset County, Pa. https:\/\/www.govtech.com\/security\/new-pact-will-up-911-cybersecurity-for-somerset-county-pa Publish Date: 2026-01-16 17:26:00…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":179091,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/erepublic.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/f44ad60\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/420x204+0+0\/resize\/1440x700!\/quality\/90\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Ferepublic-brightspot.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com%2Fca%2F91%2F35d7016d41fc9e279e14bc7c97fd%2F911-dispatch-art.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[30,24],"class_list":["post-179090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-breach","tag-cybersecurity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179090"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179090"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":179092,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179090\/revisions\/179092"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}