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BREAKING NEWS
ON YOUR CELL 4
IN
F
O
Facing a debt of $1.45 million
over a long-delayed sewage
plant project, the Floyd County
town of Georgetown has taken
thefirst steptowardwhat would
be an unprecedented move for
an Indiana municipality fil-
ing for bankruptcy protection.
Whether Georgetown could
do that, however, is in dispute.
State officials say Indiana law
doesnt authorize a town to de-
clare bankruptcy.
Georgetowns leaders have
no authority to declare the
town bankrupt, said Brian Bai-
ley, general counsel for the Indi-
ana Department of Local Gov-
ernment Finance.
Bailey cited a 1994 update to
the federal bankruptcy code
that says a municipality must
be specifically authorized by
state law to be a debtor, and no
Indiana law does that. (Ken-
State official says
maneuver illegal
By Harold J. Adams
hjadams@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
See GEORGETOWN, A2, col. 1
N
Georgetown
Louisville
NewAlbany
265
265
64
65
65
64
62
135
150
5 miles
The Courier-Journal
Georgetown
at a Glance
Population:
3,000.
Number of
homes: 1,200.
Annual budget:
$2 million.
By Bill Luster, The Courier-Journal
Ruth Klingenfus sat on the front porch of her home near Ballardsville, about 4
1
2 miles from Interstate 71.
Parts of her farm were sold off for development.
Ruth Klingenfus remembers finding tire marks
from four-wheelers on her dairy farm in Oldham
County the first sign that subdivisions were taking
over the area.
It was just after Interstate 71 opened in 1969, and
newresidents werepouringintothecounty. TheKlin-
genfuses, like many other farmers, decided to sell
their land to developers.
Its just kind of hard to farmnext to subdivisions,
said Klingenfus, 87.
Suchwas the impact that Interstate 71openedin
Oldham 40 years ago this month has had on what
then was a sleepy river community and nowis a bus-
tling bedroom community of Louisville.
The population in the past 40 years has quadru-
pled to 57,000. Property values have climbed. And the
amount of farmland has dropped 44 percent.
Theopeningof I-71inOldhamonJuly15, 1969, was
the real mark when Oldham County shifted from an
agricultural communitytoanurbancommunity, said
Nancy Theiss, executive director of the countys his-
tory center.
Interstate 71made OldhamCounty possible, said
Rob Dupin, who moved to Buckner from Fern Creek
26 years ago.
The interstate was the result of a push that Presi-
Interstate is engine
that drives Oldham
Its been
40 years
since the
highway
opened,
changing
rural area
forever
See OLDHAM, A4, col. 1
By Andrea Uhde | auhde@courier-journal.com | The Courier-Journal
METRO EDITION L O U I S V I L L E , K E N T U C K Y
courier-journal.com
M O N D AY , J U L Y 2 7 , 2 0 0 9 USPS 135567
75 CENTS
DLY
A G A N N E T T
N E W S P A P E R
MT
Louisville area: Sunny
and warmer today.
Clear tonight. Chance
of late-day storms
tomorrow.
WEATHER | B2
87 69
36-HOUR FORECAST
TODAY
Comics D4
Crossword D5
Deaths B4
Editorial A6
Features D1
Lottery A2
Metro B1
Movies D6
Science D3
Sports C1
TV D5
26 PAGES
INDEX
The world suddenly seemed a
lot smaller in late June, following
the theft of $415,000 from a bank
account belonging toBullitt Coun-
ty government.
Investigators say Ukrainian
criminals hacked their way into
Bullitt government computers us-
ing malicious code also used to hi-
jack $6 million from banks in the
United States, United Kingdom,
Spain and Italy in 2007.
Federal investigators are still
trying todetermine where the Bul-
litt taxpayers funds have gone. FBI
spokesman David Beyer of the
Louisville office saidthe investiga-
SecureWorks spokeswoman. It
usually grabs everything it needs
to play you.
Bullitt County and its bank,
Elizabethtown-based First Federal
Savings Bank, are just beginning to
grapple with the ramifications left
in ZeuS wake.
Bullitt officials said the culprits
hacked into an e-mail to gain ac-
cess to county government pass-
computer security consulting
company.
And its become more popular
in the past six months, Jackson
said, addingthat heis seeingtwoto
four major ZeuS incidents a
month, compared to one or none
in previous months.
Most ZeuS strains are stopped
byvirus-protectionsoftware, but if
it gets in, its looking over your
shoulder when youre doing your
banking, said Elizabeth Clarke,
tion may take several more weeks.
But computer experts say the
malicious code, which Bullitt offi-
cials identified as ZeuS, is a
stealthy type of trojan software
popular amonghackers. Atrojanis
a program that appears legitimate
but actually performs illicit activi-
ty.
Its one of the biggest malware
threats weve seen, said Don Jack-
son, director of threat intelligence
for Atlanta-based SecureWorks, a
Theft used stealthy computer code
ZeuS victimized
Bullitt for $415,000
By Emily Hagedorn
ehagedorn@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
See THEFT, A4, col. 4
WASHINGTON Senate
Democrats alone cannot pass
President Barack Obamas ambi-
tious overhaul of how Americans
receive health care, a key lawmak-
er acknowledged Sunday.
Republicans said they will con-
tinue their opposition to a plan
they say is simply a government
takeover of private decisions.
Look, there are not the votes
for Democrats to do this just on
our side of the aisle, said Kent
Conrad, D-N.D., the chairman of
the powerful Senate budget com-
mittee.
Both parties said they want to
improve the system and provide
care for almost 50 million Ameri-
cans who lack health-insurance
coverage, but they remain deeply
divided over how to reach that
goal. Republicans said the longer
the delay, the more the public un-
derstands the stakes of a policy
that has vexed lawmakers for
decades.
Republicans want to protect
the right of Americans to make
their ownhealth-care decisions, to
pick their own doctors and their
own plans, said Sen. Jim DeMint,
R-S.C. We could have a plan in a
few weeks if the goal is not a gov-
ernment takeover. Weve never
seen the government operate a
Democrat:
Health
plan needs
GOP help
Republicans vow
to continue fight
Associated Press
See HEALTH, A4, col. 1
Georgetown, Ind., considers bankruptcy protection
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Time: 07-26-2009 23:38 User: mmatherly PubDate: 07-27-2009 Zone: MT Edition: 1 Page Name: A1 Color: Black Yellow Magenta Cyan
The Courier-Journal
71
42
22
53
Crestwood
La Grange
Prospect
Goshen
dent Dwight D. Eisenhower initi-
ated years before, seeking to build a
network of highways across the
country.
Federal and state governments
paid $91 million for the 78-mile sec-
tion of I-71 in Kentucky. The inter-
state was designed to replace the
narrow, curvy U.S. 42 with a faster
route between Louisville and Cin-
cinnati.
I thinkeveryonewas prettyglad
to see it, said John McRoberts, an
Oldham County native and mem-
ber of the Planning and Zoning
Commission. Most everybody out
here worked in Louisville, so it pro-
videdalot faster andsafer transpor-
tation.
I-71travels northeast fromLouis-
ville at Spaghetti Junction and
roughlyfollows thepathof theOhio
River, weaving through seven dif-
ferent counties onits route toInter-
state 75, where it merges and enters
Cincinnati. In Ohio, I-71 splits off
and eventually makes its way to
Cleveland.
The interstate brought immedi-
atechanges inOldham, whichat the
time didnt have a traffic light, a po-
lice department or a local 911 dis-
patch. Within a few years, develop-
er Carl Clore Jr. finished Oldhams
largest major subdivision, a 524-lot
development on 904 acres in La
Grange. The large-lot homes in Bo-
rowick Farms appealed to people
fromJefferson County who wanted
more land, said Lee Clore, Carl
Clores son.
So many people wanted to see
or buy the lots that wed have them
take copies of plats anddrive out on
their ownandcomeback, Clorere-
members. It was like selling
shoes.
Oldhams population soared 89
percent between 1970 and 1980,
more thanany other county inKen-
tucky. Overall, the population has
jumped from 14,687 in 1970 to al-
most 57,000.
Busing migration
Jefferson County residents start-
edmigratingtoOldhamindroves in
the mid1970s, when a federal court
ordered busing in Jefferson County
to desegregate the schools.
Overnight, we just boomed,
said J.W. Hall, Jr., an original mem-
ber of the Planning and Zoning
Commission in the 1970s. No one
figured it was going to be that great
of an influx of people coming in.
Subdivisions replaced dairy
farms and cornfields, and between
1969 and 1974 the amount of farm-
land dropped 13 percent, to 93,470
acres. When I-71 opened, farmland
was worth $532 an acre on average,
but by 1974 that amount jumped to
$821 an acre. As of 2007, Oldhams
60,024 acres of farmland was worth
an average of $6,111 an acre.
Wendell Moore, who was a mag-
istrate when I-71 opened and later
was judge-executive, said the
growth sparked creation of the
countys police, road and parks de-
partments. The county also formed
an official planning and zoning de-
partment around 1974 to oversee
the growth.
As we grew, we had to come up
with a lot of services that we had
not had before, he said. It sort of
creeped up on us.
The county in the early 1970s
had a budget of around $250,000,
Moore said. Now the budget is
$18.9 million.
We got what we could get with
the amount of funds we had, he
said.
Business growth
Commercial growth hasnt been
as sweeping, but officials believe
thats changing.
Businesses oftenwait tomove to
anarea until it has a certainnumber
of residences, said Joe Schoenbae-
chler, a former planning adminis-
trator who recently retired as head
of the Oldham County Economic
Development Authority.
Oldham is beginning to attract
such franchise businesses as Star-
bucks and McDonalds, and soon
more people will start moving not
just for schools but for the com-
munity, he said.
Schoenbaechler and others have
spent years working ona1,000-acre
development off New Moody Lane
in La Grange that they hope will be
filledwithhomes, retail andoffices.
So far, The Rawlings Group, which
does data mining andclaims-recov-
ery services for the health-care in-
dustry and has around 550 em-
ployees, is the only tenant. The
company moved to La Grange from
Louisville in 2007 and is now the
countys largest private employer.
Many Oldham officials have
made it a goal to create more busi-
nesses and jobs in the county. In
2000, 67 percent of workers who
lived in Oldham worked in other
counties.
Downtown La Grange business-
man Bill Lammlein said the citys
historic business district suffered
for years before I-71 came, experi-
enced a revival with the residential
growth in the 1970s but later de-
clined again as the growth drew
Wal-Mart, Kroger and other big-
box stores.
People couldnt compete, and
we had to do something different,
like cater to different types of peo-
ple, Lammlein said.
Downtown business owners
formed an association in the 1980s
andfocusedontourism, andthings
just started turning around, he
said, addingthat most tourists come
from Cincinnati and are drawn by
signs on I-71 pointing to the busi-
ness district.
In Oldham County, I-71 handles
around 60,000 cars a day and so far
this year has seen more than 65
wrecks and 1,000 traffic citations,
according to police records. Last
year, the stretch of I-71 in Oldham
had159 wrecks and about 3,100 traf-
fic citations, records show.
Its dangerous, said Hall, the
forming planning and zoning com-
missioner who lives in La Grange.
The truck traffic has overtaken it.
AndreaClifford, aspokeswoman
with the state highway department,
said the state has discussed adding
some auxiliary lanes in Jefferson
County near the Snyder Freeway
and Zorn Avenue, but the project is
only in the design phase.
New interchange?
The state also is funding a study
to determine if an interchange be-
tween Buckner and La Grange
should be added, said Louise Allen
with the Oldham County planning
department. An overpass in that
same area is being designed at a
cost of about $400,000, mostlyfrom
federal funds, she said.
RuthKlingenfus lives east of that
area, on four acres in Ballardsville
that she bought after she and her
husband, Carl, sold the 1,000 acres
theyoncefarmed. Theystartedsell-
ing the land in the mid-1970s, when
developers came with offers, she
said.
It wasnt feasibletofarmonthat
expensive land, Klingenfus said. I
was ready for it to go. We were get-
ting tired, wanting more time for
ourselves.
Reporter Andrea Uhde can be reached at
(502) 582-4663.
The opening of
I-71 in Oldham
County on July
15, 1969, was
the real mark
when Oldham
County shifted
from an
agricultural
community to an
urban
community,
said Nancy
Theiss, executive
director of the
countys history
center.
By Bill Luster,
The Courier-Journal
Continued from A1
OLDHAM | I-71 drives county for 40 years
A4 | MONDAY, JULY 27, 2009 | THE COURIER-JOURNAL FROM PAGE ONE | courier-journal.com
MT-
words and used them to with-
draw funds from an account
used to pay county employees.
Bullitt County recovered
$105,813.06 of the $415,989.17 dis-
covered missing June 29 by re-
versing transactions in ac-
counts still containing the sto-
len money.
Thecountyandbankarebat-
tlingover whois responsible for
the unrecovered funds.
Greg Schreacke, president of
First Federal Savings Bank, said
the countys computers were
compromised, not the banks,
and the bank has refused to re-
fund the rest of the stolen
money.
Bullitt Fiscal Court voted Ju-
ly 21 to sue the bank for the un-
recovered money, plus interest
and legal fees.
Fiscal Court also voted to
spend $2,683 for more security
measures, including a better
router/firewall unit, external
drive and hard drive, for the
county treasurer.
Other governments have
other safeguards to protect
against such crimes.
For example, Oldham Coun-
ty government requires physi-
cal checks to take money out of
accounts, said Shawn Boyle,
county financial officer. Money
can be transferred online only
from one county account to an-
other.
Louisville Metro Govern-
ment and Oldham Fiscal Court
both outsource their payroll, so
if the account is compromised,
the payroll vendor is respon-
sible for that money.
Louisville also regularly
alerts employees to security
threats and best Web practices,
said Steve Ramirez, chief secu-
rity officer.
The power of ZeuS
Once ZeuS gets in, it can be
hard for computer users to
know they are compromised. It
doesnt usually slow computers
or cause a flurry of pop-up ads,
as other malware does.
Hackers can spread the pro-
gram through unsolicited spam
e-mails that boast e-greeting
cards and links to videos or
news stories.
But the most common way
they get through is via Web
browsing, said Matthew Wil-
liams, president of Louisville-
based Hadley Williams Group,
a technology security company.
A computer user hits on a safe-
looking Web site, which surrep-
titiously installs the code.
Williams recommends Web
surfers uselargesearchengines,
like Google and Yahoo, which
try to weed out infected sites.
Jackson said ZeuS is easy to
customize. Hackers can buy a
ZeuS tool kit and program it
to grab whatever information
they want. And by changing the
code, ZeuS can more easily slip
past virus-protection software.
Thats why regularly updat-
ing security software is key, he
said.
Jackson said he began study-
ing ZeuS after the code was dis-
covered in late 2006, and he
claims to be the first to discover
how the trojan is used to steal
banking information and route
the funds to hackers.
Between the costs of the
software, servicing it and the
manpower involved, hackers
can invest $10,000 to $20,000 in
a ZeuS heist, knowing they will
get $100,000 to $300,000 in re-
turn, he said.
In a USA Today story last
August, Jackson said he con-
versedvia the Web with A-Z, a
young Russian man who au-
thored the original ZeuS pro-
gram.
He was a regular onsome of
the Russian malware boards,
Jackson told The Courier-Jour-
nal. You get to know some of
the people who post on these
and how capable they are, how
ruthless they are.
Jackson doesnt know his
name but said A-Z told him he
attends or attended Moscow
Technical University and likes
Germancars; he toldJacksonhe
was saving up for one.
In early 2007, A-Z worked
with a German cyber-gang to
complete the $6 million heist,
Jackson said.
Computer security
Schreacke said the hackers
who stole from Bullitt govern-
ment were so successful that
from the banks perspective,
theytransferredmoneyjust as if
the county had done it.
The layers of protection in-
filtrated include a separate soft-
ware program for commercial
online banking thats not Web-
basedandsecurityprotocol that
recognizes when a different
computer accesses it,
Schreacke said. A security code
is sent via e-mail that is goodfor
20 minutes and must be used to
get into the account.
Transfers also require dual
authorization.
The banking software does
not allow the administrators
e-mail to be changed, so
Schreacke believes someone at
the county was alerted to the
transactions and approved
them.
But Bullitt County Attorney
Walt Sholar said no one at the
county approved the transac-
tions.
The illegal transfers were
discovered after a county em-
ployee asked the bank about the
accounts activity, Schreacke
said.
Jackson and Nick Newman,
computer crime specialist with
the National White Collar
Crime Center in Fairmont,
W.Va., said one way to avoid
such situations is for more
banks to call customers when
strange activity is detected.
If out-of-the-ordinary trans-
actions are noticed in an ac-
count, First Federal alerts the
customer, but in general, the
bank does not have the staff to
regularly monitor accounts,
Schreacke said.
Other banks, such as Fifth
Third, do monitor accounts and
offer regular phone calls toalert
customers of strange activity.
Meanwhile, Bullitt Judge-Ex-
ecutive Melanie Roberts said
she might consider offering
Web safety education for coun-
ty employees.
George Cummings, informa-
tiontechnologytechnicianwith
Madisonville-based Computer
Knights, an information tech-
nology company that contracts
with the county, said Bullitt ac-
tually had a really good anti-vi-
rus program on there, which
was also up to date.
Payroll information was
scanned for malicious data be-
fore and after it was moved to
the treasurers new computer,
following the breech, he said.
Its a dangerous mind be-
hind that virus, Cummings
said. You always have to stay
one step ahead.
Reporter Emily Hagedorn can be
reached at (502) 582-7086.
THEFT | Code is stealthy
Continued from A1
COMPUTER
SECURITY TIPS
If a Web site looks like it was
quickly put together or has a
disclaimer saying browse at your
own risk or that the authors are
not liable for information on the
site, its probably not wise to
visit.
Redirection from Web pages
can be a giveaway that a com-
puter is infected or the site is
bad. For example, if you go to a
site claiming to be about auto
repair but its about something
else, or if you type in a known
Web address but a different site
pops up, immediately close your
Web browser and run a virus
scan.
Do not rely on trial versions
of anti-virus products. The dan-
ger is that the trial version does
not receive updates, so any new
trojan or virus that is introduced
after the trial version was re-
leased will have access to your
computer.
Patch management is key.
Ensure that youre actively
installing updates. Also, run
scans by your virus-protection
software at least once a week.
Be cautious about installing
software, especially software
that looks too good to be true,
such as download accelerators
and free, online spyware removal
tools. Be aware of pop-ups from
Web sites asking users to down-
load, execute or run otherwise
privileged operations. Often this
free software and pop-ups have
malware embedded.
If possible, set aside a com-
puter for online banking, online
bill payment and any trans-
actions that call for personal or
financial information. Do not use
the computer for Web browsing
or e-mail.
Avoid clicking on links or
attachments within e-mails from
untrusted sources. Even if you
recognize the sender, confirm
that the sender has sent the
specific e-mail to you before
clicking on links or attachments.
Be especially wary of attach-
ments ending in .exe.
Sources: SecureWorks; Nick
Newman, computer crime spe-
cialist with the National White
Collar Crime Center; Matthew
Williams, president of the Hadley
Williams Group
plan of any kind effectively and at
the budgets we talked about.
Democrats countered that their
plans and there are many itera-
tions on Capitol Hill, as commit-
tees in both the House and Senate
work on versions would expand
coveragewithout addingtothedef-
icit. Even so, they are likely to leave
for anAugust recess without avote.
White House spokesman Rob-
ert Gibbs saidtheyare80 percent
in agreement on what a final ver-
sion will include and are making
progress.
In separate interviews on the
Sunday shows, Obama adviser Da-
vid Axelrod used the same line, un-
derscoring the White Houses de-
sire to paint the missed deadline as
a hiccup rather than a hurdle.
Now, were at the final
20 percent and were trying to
workthroughthosedetails, hesaid
during one appearance.
During another, he added:
Were less interestedinharddead-
lines than in moving the process
forward. The deadlines have had a
disciplining effect. What we
dont want is for the process to bog
down here. We want to keep mov-
ing forward, and I believe we will.
That final piece, however, will
require GOP backing something
Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky
said was unlikely. The Senate mi-
nority leader said congressional
Democrats are having difficulty
selling a health-care bill to their
own members.
The only thing bipartisan
about the measure so far is the op-
position to it, McConnell said.
Its a reality Conrad and others
acknowledged. Even though the
Democrats enjoy a majority in the
Senate, some are skittish about the
financial or political costs of the
proposals.
The same is true on the other
side of the Capitol. Rep. Jim Coo-
per, a Tennessee Democrat and a
member of the fiscally conserva-
tive Blue Dogs, saidhe doubts the
Democratic-controlled House
could pass a proposal.
We have a long way to go, he
said. David Axelrod is right; we
have agreement on 70 or
80 percent of the legislation, but it
is important we get the other de-
tails right, too.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi,
meanwhile, insisted she has the
votes in her chamber to move for-
ward with the plan despite the
same concerns among fiscally con-
servative fellow Democrats.
When I take this bill to the
floor, it will win. We will move for-
ward, it will happen, Pelosi said.
Secretary of State Hillary Rod-
ham Clinton, who led her hus-
bands failed health-care push in
1993, said Obama has made a con-
vincing case for an overhaul.
Hes waded right into it. And I
am somewhat encouraged by what
I see happening in the Congress.
You know, Ive been there. I know
how hard this is, said Clinton, a
one-time Obama rival.
I think that the time has come,
she said.. I think this president is
committed to it. I think the leader-
ship in Congress understands we
have todosomething. AndI, I think
well get it done.
DeMint and Conrad spoke with
ABCs This Week. Gibbs ap-
peared on Fox News Sunday. Ax-
elrod appeared on CBS Face the
Nation and CNNs State of the
Union. Cooper appeared on CBS
Face the Nation. McConnell and
Pelosi also were interviewed for
CNNs State of the Union. Clin-
ton appeared on NBCs Meet the
Press.
HEALTH | Plan needs GOP help, senator says
Continued from A1
Time: 07-26-2009 23:38 User: mmatherly PubDate: 07-27-2009 Zone: MT Edition: 1 Page Name: A 4 Color: Black Yellow Magenta Cyan