Lehighton may have to stash away extra funds next year to protect itself from cyber attacks.

Borough Manager Steven Travers informed borough council on Monday that the virus protection at the police department had a two-year gap.

Travers said that the police computers had Trend Micro Systems installed at one time, but two years ago it was not renewed. The license is good for a year at a time.

He said they currently have now installed on all computers and servers throughout the borough.

Travers then proposed a service contract for DRC Technologies to perform IT work for the police at a cost of $37,500, which would give them 300 hours for the year.

He said the number of hours was determined by the amount of time they felt was needed for the next year.

Travers said after the meeting that the initial scan that was performed on the two servers showed that on Oct. 2, 2022, from 8:48 p.m. to 9:48 p.m., it found 744 detections on one server and 256 on the other. Detections are attempts to get in. He added there were two viruses/Malware that were detected and removed by Trend on each server.

“It’s scary; very, very scary,” Travers said. “It’s something that we really have to do to make sure that we’re protecting ourselves. We have to make sure we are doing everything we are doing (for insurance).”

Travers said the borough will have to budget it out for next year’s budget.

“It’s going to be a huge increase,” he said, adding that the contract would represent an increase of about $17,500 next year, as the borough is currently paying about $20,000 a year for police IT.

“My concern is that we need to be more vigilant with Cyber Security, which in turn will result in more hours needed,” he said.

Travers shared they currently carry a $1,000,000 cyber liability policy with a $25,000 deductible per occurrence.

“If we have one cyber-attack, it will make our cyber liability insurance go up the following year, or they may not insure us,” he said.

“The insurance company also requires us to do certain things to keep us covered, or they will deny a claim; again this is where the amount of hours comes in to play.”