Cities and counties are beefing up their IT security, and that makes sense, says Augustine Boateng, interim chief information officer (CIO) in Memphis, Tenn.
“It’s important to note that local governments have developed a reputation over the years for having lackluster cybersecurity; and not without good reason. As a result, we’re seeing more and more cyberattacks targeting cities, counties, and the like.” Boateng lists the following IT weaknesses that are sometimes found in local government technology departments:
Read more…
Source: American City & County News
Related:
- Cyber attack may affect personal information of thousands of Rhode Islanders
December 13, 2024
A massive cyberattack could impact the personal information of hundreds of thousands of Rhode Islanders after hackers targeted a state contractor that stores health and personal data. Governor Dan McKee announced that the personal information of thousands was compromised in a cybersecurity attack. Anyone who has ever received or applied for health coverage or human service ...
- Scammers impersonating TSA pre-check to steal your money and information
December 10, 2024
A new warning as we head into the busy holiday travel season. It would be best to be on guard for fake TSA precheck websites. “We are seeing a disturbing trend of mimicking TSA-like sites,” says Karin Zilberstein with Guardio, a browser extension that identifies fake websites and other malware. She says Guardio has discovered ...
- US sanctions Chinese cybersecurity firm for firewall hacks targeting critical infrastructure
December 10, 2024
The U.S. sanctioned a Chinese cybersecurity company and one of its employees for exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in Sophos firewalls to target U.S. organizations. On Tuesday, the U.S. Treasury Department said Guan Tianfeng, an employee of Sichuan Silence, used the vulnerability to compromise approximately 81,000 firewalls in April 2020. The hacking campaign, detailed by Sophos in ...
- What is high bandwidth memory and why is the US trying to block China’s access to it?
December 8, 2024
The US government has imposed fresh export controls on the sale of high tech memory chips used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications to China. The rules apply to US-made high bandwidth memory (HBM) technology as well as foreign-produced ones. High bandwidth memory (HBM) are basically a stack of memory chips, small components that store data. They ...
- Massive New Jersey cybersecurity breach leads to thousands of stolen SSNs
December 7, 2024
The social security numbers, driver’s licenses, payroll, health and other personal details of Hoboken city workers were among the data stolen in a “massive” cybersecurity breach last month. According to a list of thousands of stolen files obtained by The Jersey Journal, every department in City Hall — ranging from payroll to construction, health, and animal ...
- US critical infrastructure hit once again by a new group on the scene
December 6, 2024
Storm-0227, a Chinese state-sponsored advanced persistent threat (APT) actor started targeting critical infrastructure organizations, as well as government entities, in the United States. The group abuses software vulnerabilities and engages in spear phishing attacks to gain access to people’s devices. Once they get the access, they deploy different Remote Access Trojans (RAT) and other malware to ...