HOUSTON, Texas – The Houston Housing Authorities board members appointed Jennine Hovell-Cox as the interim president and CEO of the agency.
That move came during a special meeting Wednesday to address concerns brought to light recently by the KPRC 2 Investigates team.
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According to the agenda, HHA’s Special Board of Commissioners -- which is appointed by the mayor and is responsible for managing operations -- called the meeting to discuss new business including appointing an interim President and CEO of the Housing Authority. The previous CEO, David Northern, was placed on administrative leave with pay Oct. 29 amid an ongoing investigation into a series of questionable contracts and projects.
Hovell-Cox previously served as vice president and general counsel for the HHA since 2022, according to her LinkedIn profile.
The second agenda item was authorizing the purchase of network security hardware and software for $331,096.28. The purchase comes days after KPRC 2 Investigates discovered the HHA’s network had been breached in September.
When KPRC 2 Investigates asked HHA to confirm how many accounts were impacted by the breach, they declined to give us that information.
“On or about September 21, 2024, we were the victims of a ransomware attack; however, due to our current infrastructure, we were able to have our systems up and running without any business loss within 48 hours,” according to HHA’s meeting notes.
The board also addressed a second incident during the meeting. On Oct. 24, HHA said it received a call from the Homeland Security Department CISA informing them that they had credible information that one of their computers was infected with ransomware malware. HHA said they were able to preempt the attack by removing the computer from production.
“Since the cyber-attack of September 21, 2024, the information technology department has been working towards identifying the hardware and software security systems to enhance and\or replace our existing infrastructure. We have evaluated our existing systems and conducted extensive research to determine any deficiencies and correct them,” HHA said.
HHA’s research found the following:
- Our current firewall was state-of-the-art at the time of purchase. However, new firewall vendors have come to market that exceed the quality of our current hardware.
- At the time our Endpoint computer protection was a leading provider. In evaluating other Endpoint providers, we found more efficient and effective Endpoint desktop protection.
- Once a hacker has gained entry into our network, there is no protection to stop them from remotely accessing other servers and desktops.
To combat this, HHA said it has found the following solutions:
- Two-factor authentication
- Update to the firewall
- New computer protection program
- Ransomware protections
- A program to monitor software installation
- Utilizing the cloud