Minnesota

Gov. Tim Walz has authorized $1.2 million in state emergency disaster assistance to address a cybersecurity incident that disrupted digital services in St. Paul for several weeks this summer.

Tarek Tomes, who is also commissioner of Minnesota IT Services, will leave in mid-March for a tech role in higher education. When he does, Deputy Commissioner Jon Eichten will step in as interim CIO.

Minnesota’s case is one of several breaches of late involving legitimate access, a recurring issue in provider-heavy government health and human services systems.

A breach in a Minnesota Department of Human Services system allowed inappropriate access to the private data of nearly 304,000 people, with officials saying there is no evidence the data was misused.

The data center industry and some city officials say companies want privacy to workshop designs that will better fit a community and safeguard business plans in a white-hot competitive market.

Many professors cite the rising impact of AI and the speech of some prominent politicians as reasons to inoculate students against propaganda and falsehoods being mass produced and spread on social media.

Rochester Community and Technical College is the latest of a dozen Minnesota institutions that now provide two-year degree programs for which students can use online and AI-generated materials instead of textbooks.

A developer has a plan to build a $4 billion data center in rural Minnesota, along with wind, solar and battery plants the company hopes will attract a wealthy buyer.

Minnesota Chief Transformation Officer Zarina Baber explains how modernizing not only IT but all executive agencies and moving to an agile product delivery model is driving maturity statewide.

The stigma once associated with jobs that don’t require four-year degrees is eroding, and institutions like Minnesota State are seeing growth in areas such as manufacturing, cybersecurity and information technology.

Advocates and opponents of a proposed data center development in Hermantown, Minn., vocally reacted as the city council there voted unanimously to support a requested zoning change.

Government Technology got an inside look at one Minnesota police department's drone program to see how a deadly manhunt exposed limits of its current drone tech and why they're now aspiring for a DFR model.

A month after a ransomware attack hit Minnesota's capital city, Mayor Melvin Carter is proposing a $1 million cyber investment. Still, the IT department is set to receive less new spending than many other departments.

CISA put out a warning about the ransomware variant "Interlock" days before it attacked St. Paul, Minn. City leaders explained how they interacted with the criminals, sparking the decision not to pay.

A recent breach is related to a phishing email sent to a business email account with the North St. Paul Police Department, according to the city. The attack was contained to that account and has had no other impact.

As its larger neighbor continues to grapple with the fallout of a recent cyber attack, North St. Paul has hired cybersecurity experts to investigate a recent cyber attack on its own police department.

Jake Trippel is dean of the College of Business and Technology at Concordia University, where he also chairs the master’s in business administration, which includes a specialty in cybersecurity.

As the Minnesota capital continues to recover from last week’s cyber attack — and as officials seek accountability — lessons are starting to emerge from various parts of the gov tech world. Here’s what they have to say.