During the first week of February in Oldsmar, Fla., a hacker tried to poison the city’s water supply by increasing the amount of lye to dangerous levels. While the city fended off the attack, some areas of concern with password security and outdated operating systems were revealed that demonstrated the importance of IT to a city’s infrastructure in 2021.
While this example may seem extreme compared to a typical city’s day-to-day worries, Oldsmar’s situation illustrates how a deficient IT foundation can potentially compromise the security and operations of a city. Municipalities oversee unique services to residents—from public safety to public works—while also nurturing business growth and quality of life. During the process of serving residents, cities must meet high operational standards, handle sensitive information, and comply with federal, state, and local laws.
According to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, “The Information Technology Sector is central to the nation’s security, economy, and public health and safety as businesses, governments, academia, and private citizens are increasingly dependent upon Information Technology Sector functions.” Cities should address IT infrastructure by focusing on a few basics.
• Modernize hardware, software and equipment. Modernization lessens the risk of equipment breaking down, becoming so slow as to bring city functions to a near stop, and opening a city up to cyberattacks as vendors no longer patch or support the equipment.
• Deploy a comprehensive data backup and disaster recovery solution. To prevent permanent data loss, a solution needs an onsite and offsite data backup component—with periodic testing.
• Proactive IT support and planning. It’s important that experienced IT professionals monitor systems and provide notifications when something seems wrong. This way, cities start to proactively get ahead of security and operational IT issues. GMA has recognized the need for all cities (especially smaller cities) to have easy, affordable access to the above IT resources. By developing IT in a Box with association partner, VC3, GMA addresses these key areas.
Currently, GMA is also piloting Security Awareness Training for cities to address the people side of IT. City employees need to be aware of the latest ways that hackers attempt to trick them and learn to practice good “cyber hygiene” that makes cities more secure.
For more information about GMA’s IT in a Box, call Darin Jenkins at djenkins@gacities.com or visit the Services section at www.gacities.com.
This story originally appeared in the May/June 2021 edition of Georgia’s Cities magazine.