State and local governments hold a vast amount of personally identifiable information about their residents and these databases have become attractive targets for cyberattacks, therefore state and local governments have made various efforts to put in place security processes to protect their systems and data, according to Yvette Florez, the director of identity and access management for the State of Colorado.
The FBI San Francisco Division is announcing a new cybersecurity awareness campaign to deter business and private citizens from becoming victims of cyberattacks.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has notified election officials of software vulnerabilities found in Dominion Voting Systems equipment deployed in several states, but also that the agency has found no evidence that those vulnerabilities have ever been exploited.
Smaller state and local governments (SLGs) often do not have the resources to build a robust IT department, and IT experts say cybercriminals often target these smaller agencies because of that reason.
Officials in Portland, Oregon, discovered they lost $1.4 million to fraudulent activity after malicious actors gained access to a government email account.
State government IT officials said this week they are working to deploy their share of $1 billion of Federal cybersecurity grant funding approved last November by Congress as part of the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill.
As the health care and education sectors have become prime targets for cyberattacks, experts from those sectors expressed their needs on May 18 for more funding and Federal collaboration to better protect the cyber posture of schools and hospitals.
The House of Representatives passed the State and Local Government Cybersecurity Act on May 17, which would promote increased cybersecurity collaboration between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and state, local, tribal, and territorial governments (SLTT).
The State of Colorado’s new Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) Ray Yepes is urging all state and local governments (SLGs) to develop a threat intelligence program to stay one step ahead of cyber adversaries.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan further solidified Maryland’s commitment to cybersecurity by signing three bills that will fund new technology purchases and staff positions and solidify the state’s cyber policy structure.
