{"id":221103,"date":"2026-05-27T08:47:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T12:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/27\/johnston-county-officials-detail-24-7-cybersecurity-monitori\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T12:10:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T16:10:18","slug":"johnston-county-officials-detail-24-7-cybersecurity-monitori","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/27\/johnston-county-officials-detail-24-7-cybersecurity-monitori\/","title":{"rendered":"Johnston County officials detail 24\/7 cybersecurity monitori&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.johnstoniannews.com\/news\/johnston-county-officials-detail-24-7-cybersecurity-monitoring-efforts-9de7254a\">Johnston County officials detail 24\/7 cybersecurity monitori&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.johnstoniannews.com\/news\/johnston-county-officials-detail-24-7-cybersecurity-monitoring-efforts-9de7254a\">https:\/\/www.johnstoniannews.com\/news\/johnston-county-officials-detail-24-7-cybersecurity-monitoring-efforts-9de7254a<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-05-27 08:47:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.johnstoniannews.com\">www.johnstoniannews.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Author: <a href=\"\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p> Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points. SMITHFIELD \u2014 Johnston County officials say cyberattacks targeting county systems occur frequently, requiring continuous monitoring and evolving security measures.\u201cWe receive thousands of breach attempts daily,\u201d said Jamie Briscoe, Johnston County\u2019s assistant IT director. \u201cIt\u2019s constant.\u201dJeff Howard, director of Technology Services, said staff and automated systems monitor network activity around the clock and respond immediately to suspicious behavior.\u201cWe have staff and software that is monitoring our network devices 24\/7,\u201d Howard said. \u201cSo if my staff\u2019s asleep at 2 o\u2019clock in the morning, a protocol is in place to block or kill suspicious activity.\u201dHe added that protections extend across all county devices.\u201cWe have security on every single device that we have in Johnston County,\u201d Howard said.Password security focusHoward said most attacks involve repeated attempts to guess login credentials, making passwords a key vulnerability.\u201cThe password is the No. 1 vulnerability, and that\u2019s why we work really hard to remove that risk,\u201d he said.To reduce that risk, the county has moved to biometric authentication. Employees now verify access through smartphone prompts requiring facial recognition or fingerprint scans rather than entering passwords.\u201cThe password can\u2019t be compromised using this form of authentication,\u201d Howard said. \u201cIt\u2019s a biometric facial scan or thumbprint that allows you access to your computer or to your laptop.\u201dA password vault system is still used for some applications, but access is tightly controlled.\u201cWe have a password vault,\u201d Howard said. \u201cSo instead of having a password taped to the bottom of your keyboard, it\u2019ll be in a password vault.\u201dEntry to the vault also requires multi-step verification.\u201cTo log into this vault, it\u2019s going to send me a push notification to my phone,\u201d Howard said. \u201cAccess requires another biometric scan.\u201dHoward said the county is working to further reduce reliance on traditional passwords.\u201cI\u2019ve tasked my staff with looking at these older applications and trying our best to move into a more modern authentication method,\u201d he said.Vendor oversightHoward said most sensitive resident and taxpayer data is stored on state systems or third-party vendor platforms rather than county servers.Because of that, the county requires vendors to meet strict security standards before being approved.\u201cThese companies have to meet a certain level of security standard to be able to store this information,\u201d he said.Vendors undergo a review process that includes questions about security practices, audits and past breaches, along with supporting documentation.\u201cWe use the industry standard \u2018Trust but Verify\u2019 method,\u201d Howard said.When vendors are granted access to county systems, their activity is restricted and monitored.\u201cOnce they get there, everything\u2019s recorded,\u201d Howard said. \u201cThere\u2019s a video recording of their keystrokes. It\u2019s time- and date-stamped. Everything\u2019s documented.\u201dHoward said the goal is protection, not oversight of user behavior.\u201cWe need to know every single thing that\u2019s going on in this network,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not because we want to control what a user does. We are trying to prevent the network from being compromised.\u201dIf a vendor experiences a breach, access is immediately revoked until security issues are resolved.\u201cWe have had vendors that have been breached, and we\u2019ve immediately denied their access,\u201d Howard said.\u201cWe\u2019re always trying to build that next wall.\u201d<br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Johnston County officials detail 24\/7 cybersecurity monitori&#8230; https:\/\/www.johnstoniannews.com\/news\/johnston-county-officials-detail-24-7-cybersecurity-monitoring-efforts-9de7254a Publish Date: 2026-05-27 08:47:00 Source Domain: www.johnstoniannews.com&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":221105,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/public-assets-prod.pubgen.ai\/brand_046af3ae-b66e-4ec0-bad3-eebde25542b6\/asset_1fc6fa4c-1e28-4083-9db0-eec36f16a029.jpg?w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[30,24,27],"class_list":["post-221103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-breach","tag-cybersecurity","tag-vulnerability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221103"}],"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=221103"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":221107,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221103\/revisions\/221107"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}