The global shortage for cybersecurity professionals reached 4.07 million and the U.S. gap nears 500,000, according to last week’s report by the non-profit membership association for information security leaders, (ISC)2.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) remains highly confident in the agency’s efforts to defend against nation-state cyber threats including those targeting U.S. elections and supply chains, a senior CISA official said today.

In a panel at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Cybersecurity Summit today, House Committee on Homeland Security (CHS) Aide Moira Bergin stressed Chairman Bennie Thompson’s, D-Miss., desire to reestablish the White House cybersecurity advisor position.

Rep. John Katko, R-N.Y., introduced the State and Local Government Cybersecurity Improvement Act on Aug. 30 to help state and local governments combat cyberattacks. The legislation comes in the wake of increasing ransomware attacks targeting state and local governments, including Katko’s own state.

About two-thirds of 2019 ransomware attacks in America have targeted state and local governments, according to an Aug. 28 report published by Barracuda Networks, a cybersecurity group.

Despite a downtick in number of states using paperless voting equipment since 2016, eight states are still expected to use paperless machines in the 2020 election, according to an Aug. 13 Brennan Center for Justice report.

The state and local government sector is seeing strong growth in the adoption of DMARC email authentication, but still lags far behind the Federal government and has much room to improve, according to a recent report from Valimail.

A team of academics and experts published a July 10 blueprint that acts as a template to help communities become “smart cities” by adopting a secure hybrid cloud architecture.

On Monday, Senator Bob Menendez, D-N.J., announced a bill to provide funding to states to safeguard voting systems from cyberattacks. Citing the Robert Mueller report, Menendez demanded that Congress act to secure election infrastructure from foreign adversaries like Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea.