Cybersecurity

Soft skills are essential to good cybersecurity — a lesson Erik Avakian has learned over the course of his more than 12 years as chief information security officer for the state of Pennsylvania.

State auditors found 16 areas of concern at Western Connecticut State University, including that it did not sanitize electronic storage devices in a timely manner nor adequately document their disposal.

New survey results from the Cloud Security Alliance and BigID show gaps in protecting data in the cloud as well as a lack of confidence in controls being used by enterprises.

A webinar this week hosted by Lightspeed Systems featured experts in cybersecurity and cloud operations who laid out the current climate of K-12 cyber crime and what schools can do to thwart would-be threat actors.

Indiana’s Office of Technology, Purdue University and Indiana University are teaming up to offer free cybersecurity assessments to interested local governments in an effort to improve cyber postures statewide.

Having stepped down earlier this month, Georgia CISO David Allen has been replaced by interim CISO Mike Davis, who returns to the Georgia Technology Authority after a three-year stint with another state agency.

The state’s Office of Management and Enterprise Services announced the move. Singleton, who became CISO in 2019, led the OMES Cyber Command team and helped to secure remote work for state employees, among other tasks.

Vista Equity Partners will buy the Florida firm, which has worked with public agencies to better protect them and residents against cyber attacks. The move comes amid more private equity interest in gov tech.

The private Christian university in Washington said multiple unauthorized actors infiltrated the network in July, possibly accessing names, student ID numbers, Social Security numbers and health insurance information.

Alameda, Contra Costa and San Francisco counties all use the PollChief software to manage poll worker schedules and track voting equipment. Konnech, the company behind PollChief, has been accused of storing sensitive data in China.

Lynbrook, N.Y.'s Internet Outage Continuity Plan takes an in-depth look at how the local government can maintain critical services — even in the face of a six-month-long Internet outage.

The City Council recently joined the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center, a division of the Center for Internet Security. The partnership will allow for better cyber incident information at no cost to the city.

Russian-linked ransomware. Billions of dollars in cyber insurance. A growing workforce. Understanding the latest data on cybersecurity in the public sector is critical to establishing a secure and productive operation.

Three years into the increasingly popular program, Cincinnati-area high school students at Lakota Cyber Academy are securing internships and competing with college students in national cybersecurity contests.

What were the top cybersecurity themes, including several unexpected narratives, that emerged from the 2022 NASCIO Annual Conference held in Louisville, Ky., this past week?  

As commonwealth CISO and chief risk officer, Anthony O’Neill leads Massachusetts’ cybersecurity efforts, which are framed within the broader context of risk management.

The Hawaii Office of Homeland Security and the Office of Enterprise Technology Services are responding to a hacking incident on the websites of Hawaii airports that is "possibly linked to similar incidents across the country."

As cybersecurity threats change over time, so do the jobs of those tasked with fighting them. In many states, the CISO is now working outside the IT agency to protect the wider enterprise.