BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — On Monday, city officials confirmed that Bakersfield is one of the eight cities impacted by a recent Click2Gov data breach.
This is the second time the city has been hit with a cyber-security incident involving Click2Gov. Last November, The City of Bakersfield discovered that a cyber-security incident may have impacted certain users of the third-party system used by the City to process certain online payments.
During the November breach, the City staff and third party investigators determined that an unauthorized party had inserted unauthorized code into Bakersfield's online payment system, Click2Gov.
In a statement, Public Information Officer for the City of Bakersfield, Joe Conroy said:
“Safeguarding financial information is the City’s highest priority. The City takes cyber-security very seriously and works daily to ensure all online systems are secured to the highest extent possible. The City of Bakersfield was one of several cities throughout the country that was recently made aware of a possible data breach involving third-party payment software, Click2Gov. Click2Gov is a third party software platform that processes certain payments on behalf of the City, thus the potential breach did not occur on City-owned/maintained servers or equipment. The City is currently working with CentralSquare, the parent company of the Click2Gov software, as well as third-party experts to determine the scope of the data breach. An investigation is currently ongoing. Once the investigation is complete, the City will notify all potentially impacted parties as required by law. Although the City’s investigation into this latest possible breach is not yet complete, staff is taking the necessary steps to end its use of the Click2Gov software and is working to implement a new payment platform that provides more secure, and robust payment options for the public. The implementation of this new payment platform is anticipated to begin within the 30 days.”
