Knoxville — Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs is creating a cyber-security task force.
Jacobs, who is wrapping up his first full week as the new county leader, said municipal governments are vulnerable to coordinated computer attacks.
In March, Atlanta was hit by a ransomware attack that ended up costing millions.
Attackers also hit the Knox County Election Commission website on May 1 as primary day polls closed.
Jacobs announced he's putting together the group to create a comprehensive cyber security plan. It's something Knox County never has had, he said.
He said he'll be working with Zack Webb, who is the interim director of information and technology, on the task force.
Dick Moran, the county's longtime IT director, and David Ball, the deputy director, left the county in a house-cleaning move ahead of Jacobs' taking over as mayor. Webb previously was systems and infrastructure manager.
Just as polls started to close 8 p.m. May 1, the election commission's website was hit by a surge of server traffic from an obviously large number of countries including Eastern Europe, according to an analysis by security firm Sword & Shield.
The attack rendered the website inaccessible for about an hour, but no voter data was compromised.
The March attack crippled computers across multiple departments in Atlanta by encrypting their contents and preventing access unless the city paid up, according to WXIA-TV. The hackers responsible demanded a ransom of about $50,000, which the city refused to pay.