State and Local Agencies Must Prepare for Unexpected Cyber Threats

State and local agencies must work hard to protect their IT systems from cyber threats that are becoming more common and sophisticated. The constant looming and evolving threats have made it a necessity for agencies to be proactive. Agencies need to create a strategy to modernize their systems and a response plan to safeguard their data against cyber threats.

In order to properly protect your data and build a resilient IT system, state and local agencies need to perform thorough internal assessments focusing in different areas of their IT system. These assessments can help you identify and evaluate where and what your vulnerabilities are.

After a thorough assessment, classifying your data from most to least critical will help create a strategy to recover the most critical data first. For example, 911 response systems, emergency medical records and other information critical to health and safety would be top priority for recovery. and require additional safeguards with faster recovery plans.

Identifying your vulnerabilities and classifying your data will help you create a strategy to properly safeguard your IT system. The following five steps will help you create a strong and resilient security strategy that will be better prepared to protect against cyber threats and have a better response time if there is a cyberattack.

The first line of defense is a strong security posture with tools that help lower threats of cyber incidents. If there is a cyber incident, strong security tools such as data encryption, access controls and backup strategies can help strengthen your security.

Data encryption and access control can help you fend off evolving cyber threats. Strong encryption can help ensure that even if an unauthorized actor gains access to the data, they cannot use it without a decryption key.

Now with access controls, adding an additional layer of verification can prevent unauthorized access to your data. Protections such as role-based access and multifactor authentication (MFA) can help further enhance the security around your data.

You need to create a backup plan to help strengthen your IT’s resiliency. You cannot just have backups; you need a plan on how to access those backups and where to house them.

A well thought out strategy includes:

• Frequency of backups: How often should data be backed up? What data should be backed up? These are questions that will help you create a strong backup strategy, because not all data needs be backed up with the same frequency.
• Backup locations: Backups should be stored in multiple locations, ideally following the 3-2-1 rule: three copies of data on two different storage types, with one copy stored off-site. This ensures that if one site is compromised, data remains accessible somewhere else.
• Immutable backups: Immutable backups are backups that are reliable and secure, with copies that cannot be altered, deleted or encrypted. Creating immutable backups can be a very important asset to have to ensure a speedy recovery if there is a cyber threat.
• Cloud-based solutions: Moving your infrastructure to a cloud-based system can help you with scalability, remote access and built-in redundancy. Cloud solutions can also help you reduce your dependency on physical storage, which is susceptible to theft, fire or natural disasters.

An incident response plan (IRP) can help state and local agencies outline the procedures to help their agency detect, respond and recover from data-related incidents. A well thought out IRP needs to define the roles and responsibilities for every team member, what incidents are covered and what specific actions are required for each scenario.

Also, training your staff on the IRP will help them familiarize themselves with the procedures and become better prepared if and when the time comes for a real incident. Having a prepared staff can help your agency reduce costs, lessen recovery time and minimize disruptions.

Redundant systems help ensure that if one system goes down, a backup can take over immediately. A redundant system can be achieved with techniques such as database replication; this is when multiple copies of a database are maintained in real time.

Now the high-availability system (HA) takes this a step further. HA is an IT system, component or application that can operate at a high level, continuously, without intervention, for a given time. Implementing an HA can be critical for state and local agencies to help them minimize disruptions for essential services.

Lastly, one of the most important components in your strategy is to train your staff to recognize the dangers and how to stop them. Investing in training that helps your staff spot phishing attempts, handle data responsibly and to follow security protocols can help reduce the costs that come with a cyberattack.

Following these steps can help you create a strong strategy to help prepare your agency during a cyberattack or a natural disaster. Working proactively to prepare your staff and modernize your systems can help you reduce costs and improve response time in these scenarios.

For state and local governments, building data recovery and resiliency isn’t just about preventing downtime; it’s about protecting essential services and maintaining public trust. CDW Government can help you implement the right backup strategies to help strengthen your IT systems. Our experts can help you prepare for both cyber and physical threats, we can help you improve their resilience and readiness for any data-related disaster.