The Town of Essex is going the extra mile to protect its online data.
Council this week approved spending $15,000 for the remainder of the year on cyber insurance.
That insurance will cover up to $1 million should a cyber-attack occur.
Manager of Information Technology Jack Barron called it a necessity in today's world.
"It covers ransom, it covers all the forensics to look into the network," says Barron. "How, why it happened, the ability to get our network back online, any recovery if there's information that needs to go to the public so if there's any legal issues it covers that as well."
The OPP issued an advisory last September after a rash of cyberattacks on Ontario municipal governments in which hackers demand a ransom to unlock compromised systems.
Officials in Midland and Wasaga Beach discovered last summer that many of the town's servers had been compromised and locked down.
