Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed legislation on June 3 to create the Texas Cyber Command, which the governor’s office billed as the largest state-run cybersecurity department in the United States.
The new Texas Cyber Command is tasked with defending against cyber threats targeting state and local governments.
Backed by a $135 million investment from the state, the new agency will launch a threat intelligence center to identify system vulnerabilities, provide cybersecurity training, and coordinate rapid response efforts across agencies when attacks occur.
Then command’s headquarters is located in San Antonio, with the state saying that choice was driven by its status as the second-largest concentration of cybersecurity expertise in the country.
The command also will collaborate with Federal, state, and local partners to create what state officials called a “gold standard” for public sector cybersecurity. Its work will include both proactive threat prevention and incident recovery, with a focus on protecting critical government infrastructure from sophisticated cyberattacks.
The new agency will coordinate closely with federal entities already based in the region, including the Sixteenth Air Force, FBI, NSA, Secret Service, U.S. Army, Department of Homeland Security, and the Southwest Texas Fusion Center.
State leaders say the new department is urgently needed. Cyberattacks against Texas government entities now occur routinely and often originate from foreign adversaries including China, Russia, and Iran.
“Our state is under constant attack by cyber criminals, attacks that occur thousands of times every single second of every single day,” Gov. Abbott said. “That changes today. I’m signing a law that creates the Texas Cyber Command. Its ultimate mission is to prevent and protect against cyber breaches.”
