Category Archives: local government

Small Cities. Data Security Costs. By the Numbers.

  • 40% of local government CIOs report experiencing more attacks during the last 12 months
  • 26% of CIOs reporting an attack, incident or breach attempt occurring hourly
  • 18% report a cyberattempt at least daily
  • 78% of municipalities don’t have an adequate password management policy
  • 97% of the municipalities he surveyed don’t have a well-documented disaster recovery plan
  • 46% store their backup files and records onsite rather than offsite or in the cloud
  • 90% of local governments don’t bother…

+1 Local Government Paying Ransom on Ransomware Hack.

The local government: Montgomery Co. Maryland

The hackers demanded: 9 bitcoins, valued at between $40,000 and $50,000

Other local governmetns have been able to retrieve data from back up and not pay the ransom, was that tried? Yes, but for reasons unrelated to the hack the backup was not a viable option

What was the value of the data to the county? $5 million

Montgomery Advertiser  | Montgomery County pays ransom, gets data back

Want to Make Your City or Your State an Economic Power House for Your Client's Cybersecurity Business? 4 Easy Steps/

  • Partner with the private sector and local nonprofits.
  • Be creative and develop a program that is customized to the particular area. 
  • Develop connections between military and government units that have use for the local talent and the companies that surround them.
  • Facilitate the local placement of national government cybersecurity capacities. 

Politico | How to erect an economic powerhouse using cybersecurity

Cybersecurity as an Engine for Growth Authors: Natasha Cohen, Rachel Hulvey, Jittip…

4 Requisites to Make Cyber Security = Economic Growth Engine. New Report Highlights San Antonio, TX.

A new report, Cybersecurity as an Engine for Growth, looked at Beersheba, Israel; Malvern, United Kingdom; and San Antonio, United States to find 3 ways cyber security can lead to economic growth:

  • Proximity to government cybersecurity functions ups the talent pool & opens up contracting opportunities.
  • Being able to attract or develop a workforce is critical.
  • Requires Research centers and incubators nearby.
  • Industry leadership help raise public awareness & bring crucial capital to the market

    • …

Business Trend Becomes Local Trend. Becomes Data Source for Local Governments.

The Business: Integrated Roadways

What are integrated roadways? Roads with sensors, phone, and internet connectivity, telecommunications, fiber-optic cable, and high-speed Internet, as well as other hardware, inside road surfaces.

Would these integrated roads collect data for the benefit of the city? Yes.
 

What type of dats would roadways collect?  data on vehicle counts, speeds, and weights to give cities access to information

Equipment World | Smart pavement pilot projects stuffing roads…

Election Vendors. Cybersecurity. Anatomy of a Hack and 3 Contracting Takeaways.

North Carolina’s electronic voting system in 2016 was hacked. The way hackers got in was through the company that provided the poll book- the electronic data that allows voting personnel to verify voters.

What changes we will we see to election procurement:

  • contracts will contain and require higher data security standards
  • vendors may be audited for data security purposes
  • election workers will be equiped to switch to paper ballots, if during voting, it is discovered that election data is…

Using Government Data to Adjust Public Safety & Mental Health Care Saves Local Government Funds.

Johnson Co. Kansas relies on big data to address public safety and mental health concerns. The use of bug data has saved the local government:

  • thousands in revenue
  • thousands in man hours saved, saving $200,000 in patrol hours
  • reduced mental health related arrests, 45 arrests prevented saved more than $100,000
  • reduced reliance on emergency rooms, saving hospitals $150,000

How did Johnson Co. do it? By cross referencing 2 databases- county wide criminal jsutice database and a health and human…

Data TREND. 3 Ways Counties are managing body camera data.

Body cameras- love them, hate them- they collect data and a lot of data.

Lots of people support body cameras:

  • 2/3 of police support body cameras
  • 60% of the public supports body cameras
  • Harris County Sheriff’s Office deployed 2500 body cameras

Body cameras are everywhere in law enforcement, so how are counties handling all that data?

  • Harris Co. manages manages approximately 10PB of digital evidence
  • Harris County’s 10PB of digital evidence is expected to double in 3-5 years
  • Harris County…

Local Trend. 5 Elements of a School District's Data Security Policy. + Procurement

Why are Frederick County Public Schools (Maryland) adopting new data security rules? The School experiences a data breach.

5 Elements from the new data breach policy:

  • Requires frequent and thorough teacher and staff training for treatment of sensitive information
  • incident response planning
  • acceptable use of technology
  •  information technology security awareness
  • sets guidelines to mitigate and communicate risks for FCPS student and staff information systems

Also requires a 3rd party…