The committee, established by the governor’s signing of an executive order, will be made up of cybersecurity professionals — to be appointed by the governor — from state agencies, school districts, local governments and tribal communities.
The committee will work to develop a cyber infrastructure to help the state address risks and threats for both state and local governments. In addition, the committee will be responsible for advising the governor on legislation, funding opportunities and other cybersecurity-related issues.
The committee will work with the New Mexico Department of Information Technology (DoIT) to implement recommendations. The committee chair will be the secretary of DoIT, Peter Mantos, unless he designates a stand-in.
“The Cybersecurity Executive Order will lead us to additional funding and help improve our state’s cybersecurity posture and control maturity for the schools, local governments and tribal territories,” said Raja Sambandam, state chief information security officer, in the announcement.
The committee is expected to adopt a charter by Nov. 1, 2022, and to develop or revise a cybersecurity plan by Nov. 10, 2022. This deadline can be extended with justification.
In addition to the creation of the committee, Lujan Grisham has issued a proclamation to designate October as cybersecurity awareness month, encouraging residents of the state to use multifactor authentication, strong passwords, updated software and to learn to recognize phishing attacks.
