The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has released its Mail-in Voting in 2020 Infrastructure Risk Assessment to help with risk management of critical election systems.
COVID-19 has radically changed how state and local government (SLG) services are delivered and how their workforces operate. As employees moved from physical offices to their homes, government services had to be virtualized. This has presented SLG IT teams with a host of new concerns – chief among them is cybersecurity.
A California congressman has introduced a bill in the House to strengthen school districts’ cybersecurity by providing $25 million in grant funding over the next five years for that purpose.
Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., introduced two bills – the Continuity of Economy Act of 2020 and the National Guard Cyber Interoperability Act of 2020 – with the goal of bolstering the United States’ cyber defenses.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) made several recommendations to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and others to improve coordination of cybersecurity requirements among Federal agencies to protect data shared with state government agencies.
In a letter to House leadership, Reps. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., Cedric Richmond, D-La., Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., and Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., wrote to request funding for state and local governments to support cybersecurity efforts in the next COVID-19 relief package.
In an estimate released March 31, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said that over the next five years the Cybersecurity State Coordinator Act would cost $37 million to enact.
The Colorado National Guard is ramping up its cybersecurity awareness, starting with a cultural change to normalize cyber practices and the introduction of a cyber mascot, CIO Col. Isaac Martinez shared at a March 31 Cybersmart webinar.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on March 28 issued version 2.0 of its list of essential critical infrastructure sectors.
With COVID-19 dominating the national conversation, there has been growing discussion about how to reduce crowds and lines at polling places during the 2020 election cycle. One possibility is to enable voting via smartphones. However, cybersecurity experts remain incredibly cautious given security concerns.
