In the Denver metropolitan region, the City of Lafayette, Colorado, was the victim of a ransomware cyberattack in July 2020 that disabled the City’s network services. To ensure the City’s and its citizens’ data security, its computer systems were rebuilt from the ground up.

One of the critical success factors was the implementation of a tightly secured environment. DDS coordinated with Virsage to design a zero-trust enterprise GIS environment that includes two-factor authentication for both access and UAC elevation on the servers and tightly controlled DMZ.

DDS deployed and configured ArcGIS Enterprise for the City, including a SAML provider integrated with two-factor authentication. After completing the initial ArcGIS Enterprise deployment, DDS migrated the City’s GIS data into the new system. Many of the previous ArcGIS Online maps were deployed as static snapshots of GIS data making updates to parcels, address points, and road centerlines complicated and fractured. DDS refactored the services to hosted feature layers utilizing hosted feature views that allow internal staff to maintain data, creating live read-only public views to the same dataset. This improved data management by creating a single source supporting various applications without maintaining multiple copies of the same data. DDS also created Python scripts that automate the ArcGIS Enterprise WebGISDR tool and update parcels into the City’s GIS from Boulder County, linking parcel features to assessor records.

In 2022, the City hired a full-time GIS Developer who utilizes ArcGIS Enterprise to support the City and build new web GIS applications for the City. DDS continues to provide technical support and managed services to the City by ensuring that ArcGIS Enterprise is updated with the latest security patches, updating ArcGIS Enterprise to the latest LTS versions, and addressing any concerns related to Tenable scans managed by Virsage.