Category Archives: local government

INTERIM & TREND: Data Ransom. Newest Target: Local Governmental Entities & Private Sector. 5 Bits Informed Intel.

What local governmental entity department was the newest target to hackers holding data for ransom? Durham, N.H., Police Department

How did the hackers do it? Attached a file to a email on a relevant police investigation that appeared to be fax file.

What did the police department do? Pay the ransom? Beat the ransom technology? The police department mitigated damage by recovering the locked files from a backup copy that hadn’t been infected. The department paid no ransom.

Is this…

INTERIM Lege Trend: Creating a Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee

California Assembly has a new committee to handle privacy and technology issues. What’s the committee jurisdiction?

  • drones
  • data security & breaches including in health care
  • Smart cities that use technologies to communicate with residents
  • security of networks
  • oversight of state computer data security

The Recorder | Calif. Lawmaker Forecasts Busy Year in Privacy

Teacher Data Hacked. 3 Keys from the ISD Response.

What did hackers breach? Lawrence, MA Public Schools’ online database

How did the hackers breach the school database? A phishing attack 

What did hackers take? Teachers’ personal information:

  • names
  • phone numbers
  • addresses
  • Social Security numbers
  • calendar year 2015 gross earnings

How did the school district respond?

  • email to teachers informing them of the breach
  • explained that the district would:
    • mitigate the breach
      • directing teachers to sign up for 90 days of free credit…

Trend: Police Officer Body Cameras Data Storage and Data Safety. Top 3 Concerns for 1 State.

Maryland’s concerns over data storage and security for police body cameras include:

  • Price tag to store the data is prohibitively expensive
  • The data costs have stopped police departments from using body cameras
  • The storage retention policies differ for the recordings.
    • General 90 day retention
    • If there is an ongoing investigation data retention is for the length of the investigation
    • any video considered evidence must be maintained for 4 years

Record Journal | Legislature expected…

INTERIM. 8 Elements of Data Security Laws & Regulations.

  • Data Breach Definition.
    • What data was breached?
    • The level of knowledge the data holder must have of the breach before notification is triggered. Did they know? Is it reasonable that this data was breached?
  • How to treat good faith access to data by an unauthorized employee
  • How to treat the breach of account creditial information.
    • user name, passwords, and security questions
  • Timing.
    • ​When must notification be given?
  • How to treat data processors, people who hold the data but…

Library Data. Do Cities Protect it? Do Universities? 3 Points from the Pro-Delete User Records Side.

  • The City University of new York began purging data because it believes libraries should only keep information users want
  • American Library Association doesn’t believe you are what you read and opposes law enforcement use of library records.
  • The  Library Freedom Project supports protecting web searches on public computers, encouraging libraries to operte exit nodes and Tor, a difficult to trace web browser

The Guardian | You are not what you read: librarians purge user data to protect…

Lege Trend: Exempt Government and Telecoms from Data Security Legislation

Australia is re-writing its data security laws. A draft proposal includes exemptions from notification requirements for governmental entities and telecommunications companies. 

Australia’s Draft Data Security Legislation 

The Guardian | Telcos and security agencies exempted from data breach rules in draft bill

Data Security Meets Bond Ratings. See How it will impact Texas.

Moody’s is warning that its ratings analysis will include cybersecurity.

Moody’s big picutre cybsersecurity:

  • cyber defense
  • cyber detection
  • cyber prevention and response

Moody’s specific analysis will include:

  • Nature of the affected assets or businesses 
  • Duration of service disruption and expected time to restore
  • Scope of the affected assets or businesses 

Why does this matter to Texas? Every state entity and local governmental entity that issues bonds will be impacted.

Think…

Drones & Data Storage. A Legislative Trend.

Drones collect data. Data everywhere. Private data. Public Data.

Legislatures and local governments are focused on …How long that data is stored, under what conditions, and under what dislcosure requirements is legislative fodder.

Are these private drones or public drones? Data release and data storage could apply to either. Here’s some of the legislative questions:

  • Are there penalties for a person’s private drone that collects data of someone’s orivate property?
  • How long can law…