TAMPA, Fla. — There is another potential issue for those who use the pay-by-plate option on area toll roads.
It turns out the company that reviews those toll-by-plate images was the victim of a cyber-attack, and that could lead to yet another round of delayed billing.
“I just pay it when I get it,” said Shelly Singlair.
New to the area and no SunPass just yet, Shelly hopes the latest toll-by-plate problem - and its possible billing delays - won’t negatively affect her.
“Well, I mean if it came back to make me look bad that I hadn’t paid my bill,” she said.
This week, PRIDE Enterprises, which is headquartered in Brandon, found out it had been hacked. PRIDE works with the state prison system to let inmates review toll by plate images that the cameras and computers can’t figure out.
That data is then manually entered into the system.
The Florida Department of Transportation, which contracts with PRIDE, confirmed the incident in a statement saying in part:
“At this time, the Department believes that the incident will create a delay in processing the images that need to be manually reviewed. As a result, some Toll-By-Plate customers may receive delayed invoices.”
Most SunPass users likely recall the debacle caused Conduent. Those billing issues led to months of billing backups.
Customers were faced with massive account balances and late fees.
Now – another issue.
A spokesperson for the Selmon Expressway says it’s less likely its customers will be caught-up in this latest billing issue because the Expressway Authority reviews its own images in house.
A representative from PRIDE Enterprises says the Board of Directors is now trying to figure out what’s next, and that it has a team working 24/7 to resolve the issue created by Saturday’s cyber-attack. They expect some of their systems will be back up and running in about five days, but some applications may take longer.
Fixing the issue is no small task. FDOT says last year PRIDE processed around 120 million images for the state.
FDOT stresses only license plate photos are shared, no personal data. The agency also says it severed any communication ties between itself and PRIDE Enterprises.
A spokesperson for the Florida Department of Transportation says it does not want to run into another billing backlog like it had with Conduent. They have already brought in a secondary vendor to help review more of the toll-by plate-images while PRIDE tries resolve its issues.
FDOT says some people may receive delayed invoices, but that those customers will still have the same amount of time to pay once they get their bill.
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