Carlow County Council is committed to developing and advancing information systems to increase the efficiency and quality of service delivery to our customers. The Councils Information, Communications and Technology (ICT) Department manage all information system requirements. 2017 was an extremely busy year in the ICT Department with many infrastructural projects delivered, significant work carried out on IT Security as well as cloud and software innovations.

Infrastructural Projects

In June 2017, Carlow ICT embarked on a new logical network design to exit the LGMAs national network, which has been in existence for over 15 years. A decision was made in 2016 to disband the national network, in which over 25 local authorities are loosely linked in a logical network, known as a forest. There was significant work involved in the migration, as nearly 300 user accounts, computer accounts and over 40 servers had to be migrated manually. As part of the process, some servers were upgraded to the latest licensed Microsoft Servers, to add value and future-proof their functions. This work was carried out with minimum disruption to staff and Carlow ICT services. Carlow are the first local authority to exit the national forest.

Application and Software Services

A significant amount of time was spent, as always, maintaining the council’s key suite of business applications. This suite currently includes iPlan, iHouse, Agresso, ePayments, various websites, social media sites, platforms, Office 365, Dynamics CRM, Sugar CRM, iDocs and ArcGis. These applications are all extremely multifarious and without these applications the various sections within the Local Authority could not function.

Carlow County Libraries migrated to a new Library software system, Sierra, in early 2017. The staff in the ICT Department provided support and help during this complex transition.

National Broadband Plan

The National Broadband Plan (NBP) is a state intervention that will provide high speed broadband to those parts of the country where there is no certainty that the commercial sector will invest. A Broadband Officer has been appointed from within the ICT Department of Carlow County Council. The Broadband Officer will liaise with the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment, the successful bidder and the Local Authority, to aid in the network deployment in the county. The plan aims to deliver high speed broadband to all citizens and businesses of Ireland with access to speeds of at least 30Mbps. A mapping exercise was undertaken to show areas that were already covered, or would be covered soon, by commercial broadband operators and the parts of the county that will be covered by the National Broadband Plan. This exercise will feed into the procurement process where a bidder(s) will be selected. The date for awarding the contracts to the bidders was significantly delayed and the decision date was extended until 2018.

ICT Security and Monitoring

IT Security is always a huge concern for the ICT Department with a significant amount of time and resources spent on ensuring that our network is protected from threats. This became even more relevant given the proliferation of ICT malware, viruses and ransomware. To this end, the ICT Department spends considerable time and effort implementing, upgrading, monitoring and managing the range of security measures on the network, email platform and devices, including mobile and tablet devices. A large proportion of the resources in IT are dedicated to providing an extensive range of support services to council staff, members and the public.

Windows Server Operating System and security patches were also installed throughout the year to ensure that Carlow County Council has taken all necessary IT security precautions. Servers hosting Carlow County Council’s websites were also patched to the highest level. These patches will continue to be applied regularly during the coming years to defend against potential exploits including viruses, worms and ransomware attacks.

Multiple international ransomware attacks took place during 2017 including the WannaCry and Petya attacks. These were worldwide cyberattacks which targeted computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system. Ransomware takes the form of malicious software that cyber criminals use to hold your computer or computer files for ransom. It restricts access to the infected computer system and demands that the user pays a ransom to the cyber criminals to unlock the folders. Ransomware can come in the form of a request in an email to click on a website address or directly on a link from within a website. Once the user clicks on the address it then encrypts the local files on your computer and potentially network files and demands a ‘ransom’ to be paid.

The WannaCry attack infected more than 230,000 computers in over 150 countries in one day including parts of Britain's National Health Service (NHS), along with many other countries and companies worldwide. Petya, was released a number of months later leading to global chaos, particularly in the retail and pharmaceutical sectors.

Due to the seriousness of these attacks and others, the ICT Team in Carlow County Council worked tirelessly to ensure that all necessary precautions were taken to protect the County Councils data. Ransomware attacks are becoming more common and it is important that members and staff be vigilant.

Communications

The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform established a National Framework for the Supply of Fixed Voice and Voice over IP Services. Agreements were put in place with eight carriers. The major features of this framework are:

• Lowest price guarantee
• Simple and cost effective procurement process for customers
• Public Service Terms and Conditions
• Centralised contract management and monitoring of vendor performance

The ICT Department issued a RFQ under the Fixed Voice and VoIP Framework in 2017 and awarded the contract to Vodafone.

National Planning Application Database

Carlow County Council participated in the National Planning Application Database Project during 2017. The aim was to take planning data from all Local Authorities in order to create and maintain a centralised national web service for planning application data. This web service is now available as part of myplan.ie and ensures planning application data for Carlow is available for general consumption.

Replacing Flex Applications

The ESRI ArcGIS Viewer for Flex Builder has been successfully deployed to build many web based applications over the last three years in Carlow County Council. Examples of websites built are Planning GIS, Property Register Viewer and Sanitary Services viewer.

The Flex Builder utilises Adobe Flash Technology. Many potential security vulnerabilities have been identified when using this platform. Vulnerabilities include potential security and malware attacks. Experts in the security field are now advising against the use of Adobe Flash and indeed phasing out its use completely over time.

The process of migrating flex applications to a more secure platform that utilises HTML5 and JavaScript commenced during 2017. The WebApp Builder from ESRI will be used to replace all flex built applications, thereby minimising potential security risks.