Local counties in New York will receive resources and aid to mitigate cyberattacks under a shared services program, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced last week.
The $30 million shared services program is meant to assist local counties and the State’s preliminary Joint Security Operations Center (JSOC) partners: the Cities of Albany, Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, and Yonkers.
"My administration is laser-focused on providing cyber security resources for local governments," Hochul stated. "By launching this new $30 million program, we are bolstering the state's capabilities to respond to the evolving threat of cyberattacks and strengthening our ability to protect New York's institutions, infrastructure, citizens, and public safety."
The local counties and JSOC partners will receive CrowdStrike endpoint detection and response services for no cost. The technology offers real-time monitoring of potential cyber threats.
"We know local governments remain vulnerable to cyberattacks which can cripple critical systems that New Yorkers rely upon," said Jackie Bray, the commissioner of Homeland Security and Emergency Services. "As part of the governor's shared services plan, we are now offering reliable protection services to every county in the state. This is an important step forward in enhancing our cyber defenses and building out our JSOC partnerships."
The JSOC, launched earlier this year by Governor Hochul, is a Brooklyn-based office staffed by each bodily and digital contributor from throughout the state. The middle is designed to boost defenses by permitting cyber groups to have a centralized viewpoint of risk knowledge, leading to higher collaboration between authorities’ partners on intelligence, response occasions, and remediation within the occasion of a cyber incident.
With cyberattacks taking place every 40 seconds around the globe, and NYC being frequently targeted, the shared services program will help in boosting the cyber defenses of the state. Last year, Buffalo Public Schools suffered a ransomware attack, exposing students’ and families’ private data to hackers.
And that’s just a fraction of the entities, small and large, that have been victims of cybercrime in New York. In 2014, the 8,000-person village of Ilion in Herkimer County paid $800 in ransom to regain access to its computer system after innocent-looking emails delivered malware to unsuspecting village employees.
