Admin Charges Against Clerk's IT Head 'Merit Termination': Suffolk County Exec Letter

HAUPPAUGE, NY — Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone says the administrative charges against the former Information Technology administrator for the clerk's office — in connection with the September 2022 cyberattack — merit termination, according to a letter obtained by Patch.

In Wednesday's letter to Presiding Officer Legis. Kevin McCaffrey and Minority Leader Legis. Jason Richberg, Bellone says there were "multiple and serious issues of misconduct and incompetence that merit termination."

"Once again, I urge the Legislature to take action because accountability is the only way that such conduct will effectively be prevented in the future," he wrote.

The IT administrator in question has been previously confirmed to be Peter Schlussler.

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• Bellone To End State Of Emergency In Wake Of Cyberattack

Bellone's office filed misconduct charges with the Legislature against the former IT administrator over the handling of the department before the September 2022 cyberattack, News 12 first reported on Wednesday.

County officials claim Schlussler blocked access to their systems after the cyberattack, alleging it delayed the restoration and recovery process for months and that he also did not put into place much-needed security upgrades that could have stopped the attack from happening, according to the outlet.

In an interview with Patch Wednesday, Bellone acknowledged there were "serious instances of misconduct and incompetence" in relation to the charges.

The clerk's office was part of the cyberattack, according to the forensic evidence, Bellone said, adding, "We really have to learn."

"We have to make sure there's accountability," he said. "We have to make sure that we learned the lessons — we've done that. The emergency response was incredibly successful. At the end of the day, just 1.6 percent of our systems were impacted. We were able to restore all of our backups and we paid no ransom."

Corporations and governments all over the U.S. have been impacted by cyberattacks and have paid ransom, he said, adding, "In the successful response to this attack, I think there are lessons for people to learn from."

Patch has reached out to McCaffrey for comment.

Richberg declined comment on the charges and or mention of termination.

Patch has made attempts to reach Schlussler.

He is a member of the Suffolk Association of Municipal Employees union.

In a statement, the union's president, Daniel Levler said, "Our members, like everyone else, are entitled to due process and AME is committed to ensuring Mr. Schlussler is afforded those rights, along with legal representation to defeat these charges."

In December 2022, Bellone said the cyberattack, which all but crippled Suffolk's government, forcing officials to shut down web services, began in late 2021 with hackers breaching the clerk's office's network, where they perused eight months undetected before creating credentials to the county's IT department in late August.

There were numerous opportunities to thwart the attack if the clerk's IT department, which then bypassed the county's main firewall, was centralized with the county's, and if its director implemented key security features and critical information was not withheld, Bellone said, citing a preliminary forensic examination of what led to the cyberattack.

He didn't name the clerk's IT administrator, but he was later confirmed by an aide to be Schlussler, who was placed on paid leave. Schlussler has reportedly denied doing anything wrong.

He told The Wall Street Journal in an emailed statement that the warnings from the FBI about attack indicators were sent to Suffolk but were not acted on, and that his office tried to buy a firewall from Palo Alto Networks in June, but the request was blocked.

“No one is perfect with decision-making in the highly complex technological world … however, I do know I did my absolute best by trying to bring awareness to the cyber issues that me and my team witnessed over the course of the year,” he said.

Schlussler filed a notice of claim with an intent to sue the county for defamation of character in August, Newsday reported.

His attorneys alleged that Bellone defamed him by falsely claiming to members of the media that he “committed gross misconduct” and committed perjury during a hearing before the Legislature, the outlet reported.

After Bellone aired the allegations last year, District Attorney Ray Tierney said his office received the "examination of the events relating to the cyberattack" and investigators will continue to work with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Suffolk police in "the ongoing criminal investigation."

"Thankfully, my office had additional Internet Technology defenses in place, so that no criminal prosecutions were compromised," Tierney said. "I thank the county, the legislature, and the various department heads for their ongoing remediation efforts."

Patch has reached out to Tierney's office for comment about the status of the investigation.

This is a developing story. Check back later for updates.