Southold Town investigates ‘potential cyber incident’
Southold Town is investigating a “potential cyber incident” that affected town servers and its ability to communicate with residents by email, officials said in an alert issued Monday afternoon.
Town services will be “limited” during the course of the investigation, the alert said, though residents can contact the town in person or by phone at 631-765-1800.
“We are working to maintain essential town services and will continue to work to restore all systems,” the emergency alert said.
Southold’s Information Technologies Department realized there was an issue with the town’s email servers Monday morning around 6 a.m. and have been working the problem since then, Supervisor Al Krupski told The Suffolk Times in a phone interview Monday evening. Around 7:30 a.m., IT staff unplugged the town’s firewalls so there would not be any further spread of the problem that persists as of 4 p.m. on Nov. 24. A cause has yet to be determined.
Town Hall will be closed starting Wednesday, Nov. 26, around noon, through to Sunday, Nov. 30, for Thanksgiving. Mr. Krupski felt it was important that town department heads gather Monday to ensure Town Hall could still function through the incident.
“The long-term issue IT is working on, and we did call in for help [with Suffolk County Police Department, Suffolk County Office of Emergency Management and the state Department of Homeland Security], but the immediate needs are keeping town services offered,” he said.
The issue likely won’t be solved by tomorrow, though the town will keep residents updated through its emergency alert system which is unaffected by the incident. To sign up for emergency alerts, visit southoldtownny.gov/List.aspx.
“We still have the website which is helpful, we still have phones, so we can still communicate with the public,” Mr. Krupski said. “So, we’re not dead in the water. We’re so used to communicating so many different ways, but we’re down one right now.”
Emergency 911 services have not been affected by the town server incident, Southold Town Police Department said in a Facebook post this afternoon. Its administrative phone systems are also “functioning normally.” However, email systems are currently down and the processing of records requests will be limited until systems are fully restored.

“Residents and visitors can be assured that the Southold Town Police Department remains fully prepared to respond to all emergencies and calls for service,” the post said.
Southold Town is nearly 400 years old, founded in 1640. Mr. Krupski commented that throughout its storied history, Southold spent a considerable amount of time operating before the dawn of the email.
“We need to make an adjustment to the limited technology that we have today that’s still functioning,” he said.
This is a developing story that will be updated.

