At their city council meeting Tuesday night, the Joplin City Council approved a nearly $200,000 contract in hopes of protecting the city’s computer infrastructure from another cyber attack. KRPS’s Fred Fletcher-Fierro has more.

Just over two months ago the city of Joplin was hit by a cyberattack that affected everything from the municipal court being unable to access files, employees being unable to access their schedules or workers at the library being unable to make or receive telephone calls. In August the city revealed that insurers paid $320,000 to hackers to regain control of the network.

On Tuesday night, the Joplin city council approved a $197,000 with Ravenii LLC to reinforce the city’s defenses against another attack. Mark Morris, head of IT for Joplin says just because the city has brought in an outside firm doesn’t mean they are immune to being attacked again. “I’m not standing here before you, bringing this conversation with Ravenii is gonna plug all the holes and put all the fingers in the dikes or that we’re not gonna have any issues”.

Kansas City, Missouri-based Ravenii was selected by scoring the highest on criteria that consisted of experience, methodology, and cost. The firm beat out ten other cyber security companies who submitted bids. For 89 9 KRPS, I’m Fred Fletcher-Fierro