(Radio Iowa) – City administrators, county officials and school leaders in Iowa may sign up for free training to help develop back up plans for technology failures. Doug Jacobson — director of Iowa State University’s Center for Cybersecurity Innovation and Outreach — is leading the team that will conduct the training exercises.
Last month, over 30 municipal water systems in Minnesota had to resort to manual operations after a cyber attack. In May, a cloud-based system used to manage grades and assignments for thousands of U-S schools was hacked, prompting some schools and universities to cancel final exams.
The Iowa Cyber Resilience Initiative being led by I-S-U is financed with a grant from the U-S Department of Homeland Security. Jacobson says participants will start by listing what essential services of their city, county or school use technology, identify what cybersecurity measures are in place — and then start planning practical workaround for technology outages.
And Jacobson says it’s not just about anticipating a response to cyber attacks, but to natural disasters like tornadoes, floods and derechos.
A city administrator who has completed I-S-U’s “Cyber Incident Management Exercise” says it helped identify vulnerabilities and how to prepare for emerging threats.
