NAPLES, Fla. -- New details surrounding a criminal investigation after a cyber attack on the city of Naples.
“Our goal is to make sure this type of crime never happens again to the city of Naples," said Mayor Bill Barnett, Naples.
Mayor Bill Barnett referring to the spear-phishing attack on the city of Naples that resulted in the loss of $700,000.
The city says on June 24th the person behind the cyber attack, posed as a vendor representative from the Wright Construction Group, asking for a change in bank account information.
The construction company is currently working on the 8th Street South renovation project.
“It’s important to note, the processing of any invoice is a multi-layer process of checks and balances, the invoice procedures also checks and balances,” said Charles Chapman, Naples City Manager.
On July 11th the money was paid to the fake account and the city became aware it was a phishing attack August 1st.
“The city’s data systems are also safe and secure this attack was not malware or ransomware, no data breach occurred,” said Chapman.
The city is working with local law enforcement and the FBI to find the attacker.
Another priority for the city is security, “we are making improvements to our training, we are making improvements to our training modules, and are launching brand new training incentive system programs that will be much more robust and much more targeted,” said Chapman.
One city employee is on paid administrative leave, but their connection to this incident is not being released.
The city manager will have a report prepared with recommendations to new technologies at the next city council meeting September 4th.
