Lansford Borough Council’s solicitor Bob Yurchak addressed a matter raised at council meetings this year regarding the removal of borough-owned computer hard drives almost three years ago.

“There was an apparent hacking attempt into a borough police computer system, back in January of 2021,” Yurchak said. “Contact was made with the Cyber Division of the federal Secret Service. Steps were taken to isolate any hardware, which resulted in the removal of some hard drives for testing.

“The Secret Service did do testing on two hard drives. They still have it marked as an open investigation, and in an effort not to interfere with their investigation, I’m not going to elaborate any further.”

Yurchak prefaced his statement by saying that he would not answer any questions on the matter.

Borough council minutes from Jan. 13, 2021, include a report from Joseph Lyons of Overwatch, the borough’s internet technology company, regarding a ransomware attack around Jan. 5, 2021. The hard drives were removed from the network, secured and taken by a federal agent for analysis of the origin of the software attack, the report states. The computers were restored Jan. 11, 2021, the report states.

Residents have alleged improprieties in the removal of the hard drives occurred when the incident happened in 2021.

Rental ordinance

Yurchak also reported the updated residential rental ordinance and handicapped parking ordinance were ready to be advertised for public review before adoption.

Council members suggested the owner’s minimum insurance requirement be increased to $100,000 from $50,000, and Yurchak said he could make that change before advertising.

The residential rental ordinance has language and penalties to address disruptive conduct, which involves unreasonable noise, music, criminal violations and other conduct that endangers health, safety or welfare of other residents.

The handicapped parking ordinance includes language to address paraplegics, and others incapable of driving.

Council moved on advertising the ordinances.