La Crosse government very vulnerable to un-thought of attack

Emergency coordinator has more to plan for

La Crosse County emergency management coordinator Keith Butler usually has plenty of disasters to prepare for. 

He’s really going to get hard at work on one you might have never crossed your mind — cyber attacks. 

Very vulnerable is how Butler would describe La Crosse’s government — as are most governments. 

Butler got an earful of that reality at a state emergency management conference this month. 

“It’s very difficult and you always have to be a step ahead of the bad guys trying to get in,” Butler said.

The attacks, Butler added, can range from stealing employee files to taking over entire systems and charging a ransom to release control of those systems.

Data of millions of government employees getting compromised in the US in just the last year