State & Local Government Policy, Business and Technology

Florida Tests Cybersecurity Defenses with Hurricane Scenario

Government Technology: The annual state-sponsored cybersecurity training for agency staffers by the Florida Agency for State Technology (AST) — which survived another defunding attempt this spring — has doubled in attendance in three years. The state has adopted a cybersecurity framework designed to National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) specs.

In the latest training exercises, held from Aug. 14 through Aug. 17, AST in collaboration with the Florida National Guard (FNG) educated more than 40 staffers from 12 state agencies, up from around 20 trainees in 2015, the first year the exercise was held. Goals included testing incident response and internal communication procedures; and identifying best practices, and existing gaps and redundancies. Other participants included the Florida Fusion Center, a state-federal collaboration aimed at sharing resources to improve detection, identification and prevention of criminal and terrorist activity.

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