Cybersecurity

Allen Park Public Schools in Michigan shut down portions of its network and canceled classes Monday after discovering a cybersecurity threat. The district is working with a third party to ascertain if data was compromised.

Long the front line of digital security, the humble password may be on its way out. Or maybe not. In a landscape packed with alternatives — and increasingly destructive cyberattacks — it’s complicated.

Orange County District Attorney’s Office Hacked

The Orange County District Attorney’s Office information technology system was hacked over the weekend and portions of the system have been shut down while the agency investigates the damage, a spokesperson said Monday, Oct. 23.

Companies are embracing cyber defenses based on generative AI hoping to outpace attackers’ use of tools like FraudGPT, the “villain avatar of ChatGPT.” But more effort is needed, experts warn.

Clark County's Information Technology department is investigating suspicious activity detected Saturday on the county's computer network, and some parts of the county website are currently still unavailable.

In this interview with Jason Oksenhendler, a cloud security expert with experience with FedRAMP and StateRAMP, we cover all things government cloud security compliance.

Meanwhile, Florida's First Judicial Circuit Court system announced plans to cancel and reschedule some proceedings following a separate cyber attack earlier in the month.

Computer scientists, mathematicians and cryptographers are on a quest to find new encryption algorithms that can withstand attacks not only from today’s conventional computers but also from tomorrow’s quantum machines.

The city of Cumberland has established relationships with state and national cybersecurity organizations and completed various technological upgrades, but a security audit shows need for improvement, a city expert warned.

The federal E-rate program has the potential to be a well of funding for cybersecurity that K-12 schools and libraries are eager to tap to protect themselves from increasingly sophisticated cyber criminals.

State officials in Connecticut are pointing to the increasing threat of cyber attacks as proof that more needs to be done to build the cybersecurity workforce. An estimated 600,000 future cyber security jobs are expected in the U.S. alone.

Public school districts in Rochester and nearby Stewartville, Minnesota, are using the cybersecurity platform Arctic Wolf on top of their own IT security after Rochester suffered a cyber attack in the spring.

As the frequency and cost of cyber attacks on higher education continue to increase, CIOs and IT staff should be especially vigilant, training staff on cyber safety and communicating best practices to all network users.

The New York county’s district attorney has announced an online complaint form to report the myriad scams being perpetrated in cyberspace. Those reports will be reviewed by the Special Investigations and Prosecutions Bureau.

Christopher Rodriguez is now acting CTO, according to an announcement by Mayor Muriel Bowser. He takes over from Michael Rupert, who was appointed to the role in April as a temporary replacement for Lindsey Parker.

A Cybersecurity Center of Excellence set to open next year will include a cyber range, or practice space, as well as a security operations center where interns will work alongside professionals to defeat real-world threats.

Given the scale of cyber threats against universities today and the number of digital tools they depend upon, IT leaders should prioritize working with vendors that are reliable, proactive and responsive to such threats.

The hacker behind a recent cyber attack against St. Louis’ Metro Transit claims to have published the data. It is unclear what data was published or whether it included sensitive personal information.