LaLota blasts Hochul spending priorities after Suffolk cyberattacks

Rep. Nick LaLota is turning Suffolk County’s recent cyberattacks into a larger warning about what he sees as Albany’s misplaced priorities, arguing that state money is flowing to migrant costs while local governments are left to absorb the risk when hackers hit police, parking and town systems.

LaLota said Gov. Kathy Hochul spent $4.3 billion on migrants while only $90 million went to cybersecurity, a contrast he cast as especially stark after attacks disrupted Southold Town and compromised a Suffolk County server tied to traffic and parking violations. Suffolk County, which has roughly 1.5 million residents and is New York’s largest suburban county, has become a test case for how exposed local systems can be when attackers get in.

The $4.3 billion figure matches the New York State Comptroller’s account of planned emergency spending for people seeking asylum in the United States between state fiscal years 2022-23 and 2026-27. The $90 million cybersecurity figure aligns with Hochul’s Fiscal Year 2024 budget investment, which included $30 million in shared-services funding for local governments. In February 2026, state officials also announced $9 million in federal cybersecurity grant money to help 161 counties, municipalities, school districts and public authorities buy multi-factor authentication hard tokens.

Still, the Suffolk attacks showed how local vulnerabilities can translate into day-to-day disruption. Southold officials said the incident disrupted town servers and limited services, forcing the town to seek help from Suffolk County, the New York State Department of Homeland Security’s cyber division and the county Office of Emergency Management. Later reporting said police were writing reports by hand while recovery continued.

Suffolk County said its Traffic and Parking Violation Agency server was compromised in the broader attack and that personal information may have been accessed. The county said it hired multiple cybersecurity firms to investigate and restore online services, underscoring how expensive recovery can be even before any question of data exposure is fully answered.

LaLota has pressed the same argument before. In a Jan. 25, 2024 press release, he called Hochul a “schoolyard bully” over migrant spending while Long Island school districts faced cuts. As Suffolk officials keep rebuilding after the cyberattacks, his criticism is landing in a county where a breach is no longer theoretical, and where residents are being asked to trust that the next hit will not reach emergency response, property records or other systems that keep local government running.