Cybersecurity

Two North Dakota students received recognition for their performance solving real-world problems in a free online cybersecurity training program with 45,000 other high school students across the country.

The university will use funding from the state and industry partners to establish a new laboratory for its FIREStarter program, with hardware and software to accommodate hands-on training and future research.

CISA Director Jen Easterly and National Cyber Director Chris Inglis promote collaboration — but will their successors do the same? Does describing the work as “data care” not “cybersecurity” help with talent recruitment?

Tenafly Public Schools last week found ransomware had encrypted data on some computers in the district's network, leading to the cancellation of exams and classes going back to paper, pencils and overhead projectors.

Everyone from the press office to city treasurer has a role to play in cyber incident response, and getting elected officials engaged early is essential, say Coalition of City CISOs co-chairs.

Desain brings more than 20 years of experience to the role. Most recently, he served as the director of the Office of Counter Terrorism Cyber Incident Response team within the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services.

Federal cybersecurity grants are expected “in the coming months,” with CISA still mulling feedback and finalizing. Local governments should use the time to ensure they’re part of any state planning processes.

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a report last week highlighting potential hacking vulnerabilities with the Dominion Voting Systems touchscreen voting machines used by the state.

Claiming to be an accredited virtual school affiliated with the University of New Orleans, the fake City University of New Orleans has been scamming thousands of dollars from people since at least early last year.

Former CISA director Chris Krebs has joined data security firm Rubrik, where he’ll help the firm better understand unmet cybersecurity needs across different sectors. The company homes in on data resiliency and recovery.

Gov. Jared Polis this week signed into law SB22-153, which requires new security measures for election systems, and HB22-1273, which makes it a crime to threaten election officials or publish their personal information online.

Brasher Falls and Norwood-Norfolk school districts are warning families about scammers sending paper documents claiming that a student's data was exposed, then directing them to a website that actually steals their data.

The New York City Education Department will no longer do business with the California-based Illuminate Education after a security breach exposed the personal data of roughly 820,000 students.

North Dakota and Indiana passed laws last year requiring local governments to report cyber incidents to the state. The states say this helps them direct cybersecurity resources to localities in need and better understand the threats.

Government agencies and innumerable contractors have access to vast amounts of information on individual state residents, and government agencies are heavily targeted by hackers for political and financial reasons.

State chief information officers get specific about their responsibilities when it comes to the cyber health of the state itself, as well as the myriad governmental organizations within it.

Several states are offering legal safe harbors to businesses that follow industry-recommended cybersecurity frameworks, in a carrot-not-stick approach intended to encourage better defenses.

A digital twin is to a computer model as live video is to a still photo. These virtual replicas can be used to understand and make predictions about a wide range of complex systems, including people.