Stanford CIS

States 'awaken' to critical infrastructure cyberthreats

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""The election did do a lot to awaken the state and local governments that had perhaps not thought so much about cybersecurity," said Brian Nussbaum, assistant professor at the University of Albany's College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity in New York.

"Many of the kinds of infrastructure that are potentially vulnerable to cyberattacks are either entirely or mostly regulated at the state and local level," he said, citing election security, water purity and electricity distribution as just three examples. "State and local governments have come to the conclusion that, even if they are not the best-equipped in terms of staffing or capabilities, and even if they are facing these jurisdictional challenges, they feel like they are the ones that are going to have to deal with the outcomes" of a major cyber incident."

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