Donna Gilbert operates the control panel where non-emergency phone calls arrive during regular business hours at the Levy County Sheriff’s Office. The phone lines were being manipulated by a hacker starting Thursday morning.

By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter

            A computer hacker managed to gain control of the Levy County Sheriff’s Office’s non-emergency phone lines from Thursday through Tuesday at various times and demanded a $6 million ransom at one point.

            Sheriff’s Lt. Scott Tummond said the unidentified man never provided guidance to the sheriff’s office on how he wanted the money provided to him, an indication the hacking may not have been done for money.

            The man, who was tracked to the Gaza Strip of the Middle East, was able to shut down the sheriff’s non-emergency phone service whenever he chose to do so using sophisticated software.

            The sheriff’s office non-emergency line, 486-5111, was working again Tuesday but only one line. If residents get a busy signal, it’s probably because there’s another call in progress. The sheriff’s office has published two Verizon cell phone numbers on its Facebook page citizens can use for non-emergency calls.

            Lt. Scott Tummond said the man briefly spoke to phone experts at the sheriff’s office who were monitoring the situation. He spoke through a computer which made his already heavy foreign accent more difficult to understand.

            The man took control of the non-emergency lines for the first time Thursday morning using a telephone denial of service system (TDOS), a computer program that can dial phone numbers rapidly, “like one every tenth of a second,” Tummond said.

            “This individual disabled our non-emergency phone lines because he was rapid dialing into all the lines. We couldn’t get a call out and no one could get into our non-emergency lines,” Tummond said.

            Tummond said the same individual has manipulated phone lines at other law enforcement agencies around the country using the same method of operation, always demanding ransom but never following through on his demand.

            When the sheriff’s office learned Friday morning that service was restored, Tummond published a news release saying the sheriff’s office was up and running again.

            But the hacker struck again.

            “The attack renewed. We identified that the attacker was coming from three different phone numbers to our 486-5111 line. He essentially took over our service again and we unplugged the phones,” Tummond said.

            At that point, the sheriff’s office was loaned two Verizon cell phones from the Levy County Department of Emergency Management. It published the phone numbers on its Facebook page to give citizens a means of making non-emergency calls. The hacker had no way of controlling cell phones that were part of the Verizon phone system at emergency management.

            Sheriff Bobby McCallum also authorized citizens to use the 911 emergency system for non-emergency calls, something that is almost never done, but McCallum wanted residents to be able to contact the sheriff’s office if they had a problem that needed to be addressed. Tummond said the sheriff’s office suspended criminal penalties for using the 911 system for a non-emergency purpose.

            The sheriff’s office currently uses an aging analogue system that apparently is easier to hack. McCallum told Levy County Commissioners Tuesday morning he is considering the purchase of a Voice Over Internet (VOIP) system that can’t be hacked as easily.

            Tummond said the sheriff’s office also believes it needs to hire a private security company that specializes in monitoring the patterns of calls at the sheriff’s office around the clock and can block attempts to take over the sheriff’s office phone numbers, but he added no system is completely hack-proof.

            The sheriff’s office typically uses its 486-5111 non-emergency line that most residents know about, but if the line is busy the call automatically rolls over to one of eight other lines when the system is operating normally.

            “At one point in one of the phone conversations where he responded to us, he was actively broadcasting on every one of our lines simultaneously. One of our phone experts said that’s pretty impressive to command control of every one of the lines and broadcast simultaneously over every one of the lines, Tummond said.

            The man said he was Arabian. Tummond said it was obvious to phone experts at the sheriff’s office that they were talking to a person, not a computer, because he was answering questions through his computer to disguise his voice. He claimed to be part of an affiliated group that does “stuff like that, hacking.”

            The hacker didn’t get any information for his efforts, and he was unable to interfere with 911 emergency lines because he wasn’t operating within the borders of the United States, Tummond said.

            The sheriff’s office is in touch with the FBI. Phone technology experts are working on the problem. The answer might be to simply purchase a new phone system that can be better protected by modern security instead of the grandfatherly analogue system.

            McCallum made no formal request for funding when he spoke to county commissioners Tuesday, but the sheriff said this was indeed an emergency and he wanted the commission to be aware of the gravity of the situation.

———————–

Board of County Commission Regular Meeting July 21, 2020; Posted July 21, 2020