Teamwork was the prevailing theme during a webinar in which state and local government officials and industry experts hashed out the details of what’s needed for better cybersecurity.
“Cybersecurity is a team sport and you have to have everyone engaged. It can’t just be an IT issue,” Amanda Crawford, executive director of the Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR) and the state’s CIO, said during ITI’s “A Cyber Plan for State and Local Governments” event on Jan. 26. “It has to be a business issue and a leadership issue, where it comes from the top down that cybersecurity is a priority.”
She pointed to the successful mitigation of a 2019 coordinated ransomware attack that affected 23 local Texas governments. “We had prepared and had an incident response plan … that we had practiced through tabletops,” Crawford said. Additionally, the state had legislative processes in place so that Gov. Greg Abbott could declare a cybersecurity emergency and trigger help from the Texas Department of Emergency Management, the state National Guard, Texas A&M University and other organizations.
Trust is at the heart of such collaboration, added Florida CIO James Grant. “Trust is honestly at the forefront – trust that when we show up, we’re capable of doing what we say we’re going to do and that [when] we say we’re going to do it, that we actually will do it,” he said.
Partnerships with industry can also bolster cybersecurity. Crawford cited the Texas Information Sharing and Analysis Organization, a legislative mechanism that allows for threat sharing between the public and private sectors, and is free to join.
“So much of this is about timely threat sharing and then taking it seriously,” she said.
Procurement changes are also necessary for cyber advancement, Gran ..
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