Making the Case for Cyber Defense Spending in Local Government

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2015/10/making-case-cyber-defense-spending-local-government/122901/

By Bill Lucia
Route Fifty
October 18, 2015

The way David Stevens describes it, local government leaders in Maricopa 
County, Arizona, didn’t always have an especially favorable view of 
cybersecurity spending.

A “grand black hole of a money pit.” That’s how it was seen about four 
years ago, said Stevens, who is the county’s chief information officer. 
“You had no idea what they were doing. They always wanted money to buy 
tools,” he added, referring to cybersecurity staff members. “We just 
thought of them as, sort of, the wizard behind the curtain, that got in 
the way of business.”

Complex explanations about cybersecurity programs provoked glazed over 
looks from decisionmakers, and Stevens also noted that there was a general 
impression that some among Maricopa’s cybersecurity team had an 
inclination to say “no” to technology changes that might create any new 
cyber-risks, an approach that didn’t always mesh well with the county’s 
goals.

At the same time, the cyber-threats local governments faced were on the 
rise, with some of them posing potentially serious consequences and costs.

[...]

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