Netflix And Jail? Ocean County Corrections Officers Streamed Movies, Sports, Porn On Duty

TOMS RIVER, NJ — Corrections officers who were supposed to be supervising the 600 inmates at the Ocean County Jail were streaming Netflix, sports and pornography while they were on duty, an Ocean County official confirmed Thursday afternoon.

The number of officers involved was fewer than 10, Ocean County Clerk Carl Block said Thursday afternoon. The issue, first reported by the Asbury Park Press, was discovered after the county's security systems showed someone had worked through firewalls to connect to the internet. The Ocean County Corrections Department employs more than 200 corrections officers, he said.

"There was someone 'hacking out' of the system," Block said. "When they do that it opens up a connection that can allow computer viruses and malware in."

Once the activity was detected, it was monitored for a couple of weeks to see if it was a one-time event or more extensive, Block said. When it continued, Warden Sandra J. Mueller notified the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office and New Jersey State Police and took computers to the prosecutor's office for analysis, and they tracked various information to identify those who had been responsible, he said.

The corrections officers involved are in the midst of the administrative disciplinary process, Block said. He would not release details on the discipline because the process was not completed.

"It was inappropriate use of the computers," Block said. "We took it more seriously; we viewed it as a way someone could sneak in (to the system) and do something malicious."

"You've got a few guys who've done something inappropriate," he said. "Not everyone was doing it," he said, noting the jail is staffed on three shifts around the clock seven days a week.

Block said the activity was separate from an issue that arose about a year ago with an internal data breach that from work upgrading the security of the county's computer systems.

"We've been ramping up our cybersecurity for a couple of years," Block said, in response to growing threats of hacking from the outside.

The data breach was identified by a corrections employee who was a trusted user of the system, Block said. An internal shared drive containing confidential personnel records was left accidentally left accessible to anyone within the system. The employee alerted a superior immediately Block said.

"We had it fixed within the hour," he said, and all of the county employees as well as staff of the Ocean County Library system — the county handles payroll for the library system — were notified of the issue. The entire system was checked to ensure that no other openings existed, Block said, and an internal firewall between departments was added.

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