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City says no citizen data compromised after 911 breach

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Posted at 6:12 PM, Mar 28, 2018
and last updated 2018-03-28 18:12:25-04

The Chief Digital Officer for Baltimore City stresses a Sunday breach of the Computer Aided Dispatch Network, compromised no personal data of citizens.

According to Frank Johnson, technicians with Baltimore City Information Technology identified the initial breach on March 25 at 8:30 a.m. The network effected, supports 911 and 311 emergency communications services. 

As result of the breach, information from incoming 911 calls was relayed to dispatchers manually rather than electronically. 

Johnson emphasized, 911 services were not at anytime impacted or disrupted.

Tech professionals were able to quickly isolate the affected server, thus mitigating the threat.  The next morning, at around 2 a.m, the CAD backup system had been fully restored.

It was determined, an internal change to the firewall made by a technician working on an unrelated matter, created vulnerability to the server. 

The city is continuing to investigate the source of the intrusion.