The Rogers County Commissioners agreed at their Monday meeting to move forward with a proposed training course. They heard a presentation from Tim White, Claremore's IT director, who said he's facilitated cybersecurity training for city employees for a long time.
White said the training would be all online through a company called KnowBe4. It was founded by a former hacker who decided to use his talents to help employers fend off hackers after he was caught by the FBI.
City employees train twice a year at minimum, White said, and all new employees train as part of the onboarding process.
He said the training is mandatory for city employees, and District 2 Commissioner Steve Hendrix said it should be mandatory for county employees, too.
"Either you take the training or we disable your account," White said. "You can't log in anymore. And we have done that. We've done that more than once and made believers out of people that this is serious, and we expect you to take this training."
White said when people think of hackers, they might think of people in a dark room somewhere, trying to break into systems through the back door.
But he said hackers now prefer to take the path of least resistance: "the people sitting in the chairs using the computers." He said that's why training people to identify certain emails, phone calls or documents as phishing expeditions is so important.
In late July, someone posing as Planning Commission Director Missy Richardson swindled the payroll office into depositing Richardson's paycheck into their account. Posing as Richardson, the person successfully requested to update her direct deposit information.
White said a similar scenario happened some years ago when the city's finance director received an email from someone pretending to be the mayor, requesting balances for certain accounts. The finance director only sniffed out that it was a scam when he asked her to pay thousands of dollars in outstanding invoices.
"They come in various ways, other than somebody sitting behind a computer trying to hack your system," White said. "They're just simply using some common sense and some lies and some some sleight of hand and some sly storylines to be able to get people to tell them what they want to know."
He said the program would likely cost less than $3,000 a year to implement. He said each KnowBe4 account is $24.84 a year. Rogers County has about 97 users, he added, but since some accounts are shared and sharing accounts is a security risk, the final tally of users would be higher.
The commissioners also approved Envision Civil Contractors LLC's bid to install a wheelchair ramps at the entrance to the courthouse.
The Claremore company was the low bidder for the proposed 38-foot access ramps, at $21,150.50. The commissioners first discussed this item at a July 15 meeting but tabled it so they could review the design again.
They also approved Oklahoma City-based Coates Field Service Inc. as the contractor for a 140-foot bridge over Little Pryor Creek on the Rogers-Craig county line.
The bridge would span a low-water crossing that District 1 Commissioner DeLozier said swept away a car once. Just 2 inches of rainfall is enough for the creek to swell up to the roadway.
The project is being funded by the federal government and the County Improvement for Roads and Bridges fund, created by the Oklahoma Legislature and administered by the Oklahoma Department of Transportation.
The commissioners also approved a summary schedule of prior audit findings from the federal government.
County attorney Todd Wagner said the report contained the results of federal audits from the county's administering of federal funds in Fiscal Year 2021. He said the report found the commissioners had corrected any mistakes they had previously reported.
According to the report, the county has "not corrected" errors it made in reporting the administration of some public works, economic development and highway funds.
The commissioners took no action on a pending workers' compensation claim by Dylan Priddy.
Priddy, a former Rogers County detention officer, was seriously injured in 2023 when he was riding alongside a deputy, who ran off the road after taking a turn at an unsafe speed. Neither man was wearing his seat belt.
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