NEWS
Nocona General investigates hack into its computer system
By BARBARA GREEN
[email protected]
Officials with Nocona General Hospital are in the preliminary stages of trying to figure out what happened when an onsite server used primarily to transfer records was reportedly hacked by a foreign organized crime group.
Brian Jackson, attorney from Jackson & Carter, Austin, spoke for the hospital Monday explaining the hack and how it was being investigated. The information came to the media’s attention during the weekend when NBC News reported hackers posted tens of thousands of files from two U.S. hospital chains to a blog on the “dark web” used to extort their victims often demanding payment through bitcoin.
The report written by Kevin Collier on Feb. 5 states files came from Leon Medical Centers with eight locations in Miami and Nocona General Hospital. The hacker group is reported to be well known to cybersecurity researchers and they typically encrypt the victim’s files and demand payment.
Information can include patient names, addresses and birthdays, along with medical information such as diagnostic results and letters to insurers. Collier writes it is rare for them to publicly release such files first, so the motive for this early release is “unclear.”
Nocona General does not appear to have been a victim of the ransomware. Jackson said an organized crime group from possibly Ukraine or Russia systematically tried to hack into business computer systems in the United States, and a number of them were breached last week including Nocona General Hospital.
Read the full story in the mid-week Bowie News.
NEWS
Medical needs community meeting on Nov. 19
The second community meeting on needs for an emergency room or hospital in Bowie is scheduled for 6 p.m. on Nov. 19 at the Bowie Community Center.
This is the second meeting to discuss these needs following the closure of the Faith Community Health Center emergency room on Oct. 6, just shy of a year of operation. More than 200 people attended that first meeting, where discussion centered on the creation of a taxing district to support any sort of medical facility.
Citizens in the Bowie area are encouraged to attend and take part in these discussions.
NEWS
Bowie Council members to take oath of office
The Bowie City Council has moved its Nov. 18 meeting to 6 p.m. on Nov. 19 where three new council members will take the oath of office.
Councilors include Laura Sproles, precinct two, Brandon Walker, precinct one and Laramie Truax, precinct two. After the votes are canvassed and the oaths given, a mayor pro tem will be selected.
The new members will jump right into training as City Attorney Courtney Goodman-Morris provides an orientation and discussion of duties for council members.
City Manager Bert Cunningham will make his monthly report on the following topics: Nelson Street, which opened last Thursday, update on the sewer line replacement project, substation transformer placement and information on medical companies.
A closed executive session on the Laura McCarn vs. City of Bowie lawsuit is scheduled. The suit arose in November 2022 when the city broached selling some 25 acres it owns on Lake Amon G. Carter, originally part of the land purchased for the 500-acre Bowie Reservoir completed in 1985.
McCarn challenges the ownership of the property stating it should revert to the original owners since it was not used for the lake.
This 24.35 acre tract is located at the end of Indian Trail Road surrounded by the lake and the Silver Lakes Ranch subdivision.
NEWS
Council celebrates reopening of Nelson by moving the barricades
One of Bowie’s major thoroughfares, Nelson Street, was reopened Thursday after one busy block has been closed since August 2021 when a section of the street failed.
Construction finally came to an end on Thursday when the street, including the Nelson and Mill intersection were reopened. Mayor Gaylynn Burris, City Manager Bert Cunningham, Councilors TJay McEwen and Stephanie Post, Engineer Mike Tibbetts and Public Works Director Stony Lowrance met at the site Thursday morning and removed the barricades. It only took a few minutes for vehicles to start arriving and drivers were excited to go through on the new roadway.
This section of Bowie has endured flooding and drainage problems for many years and in the summer of 2023 the city council finally bit the bullet and sought bids for the repair work expected to top $3 million. In August 2021 a one block section of Nelson was closed when a large sinkhole appeared on the north side of the street. Traffic had to be diverted including all the school traffic flowing from the nearby junior high and intermediate.
Read the full story in the weekend Bowie News.
Top photo – (Left) Mike Tibbetts, engineer with Hayter Engineering, talks with Bowie City Manager Bert Cunningham as they look over the massive drainage project on Nelson Street.
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