North Dakota’s Information Technology director said his department is using money from the CARES Act to buy equipment, as the state continues to move toward employees working remotely.
Telework expanded because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
IT director Shawn Riley told the Legislature’s interim Information Technology Committee his Department is spending $10.5 million on new equipment.
"We are purchasing a little over 6000 laptops for use across the state, to be able to continue to enable telework and social distancing,' Riley said. "Along with that, there's around 9000 monitors, docking stations, hardware for cameras -- we have new camera systems that are going into a number of conference rooms. So a huge amount of equipment that is exploding out across the state."
But Riley told the Committee there have been some problems getting all the needed gear delivered.
"Unfortunately, there is still very much a supply chain problem worldwide," Riley said. "We cannot get the amounts of equipment we need."
Gov. Doug Burgum has said he will have some recommendations on some state employees continuing to work remotely, even after the pandemic eases.
Cyber fraud
Riley also told the committee the amount of cyberattacks and fraud have gone through the roof because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Riley said the “nation-state” attack numbers have dramatically increased over the past three months, nationally and in North Dakota.
"We've seen an increase in ransomware, and a huge increase in phishing attacks," Riley said. "Those phishing attacka are specifically designed with the World Health Organization and the state Department of Health."
Riley also said scammers are using cellphone texts, targeting the $600 per week federal unemployment benefit and the $1200 stimulus payments.
"Nationally, the unemployment component has been a huge, huge increase," Riley said. "And all the data necessary to file for unemployment has been a massive target."
Riley said nationally, there have been more than 24 billion reported cyber attacks.
