Take that, hackers! Minnesota agencies have just launched a statewide cybersecurity plan for schools and local governments (with a big financial investment).
Here’s Five Fast Facts on Minnesota’s Cybersecurity Plan:
- 🖥️ Return - The plan is backed by Minnesota IT Services (MNIT) and the Minnesota Cybersecurity Task Force, with a focus on improving cyber defenses for schools and local governments.
- ⌨️ Space - The plan will distribute $23.5M across the state, with 25% for rural areas. A total of 80% of the overall funding goes directly to defensive programming.
- 💻 Shift - The task force aims to help acquire tools and resources to strengthen their baseline cybersecurity setups. They also plan to expand threat intelligence analysis and security collaboration throughout the state.
- 🖱️ Delete - The program comes on the heels of the St. Paul Public Schools, University of Minnesota, and Minneapolis Public Schools all recently experiencing data breaches. If you have kids in any of those schools, that’s concerning.
- 🛜 Escape - Minnesota isn’t an outlier. Since 2014, an increasing number of state governments have updated their cybersecurity policies to a whole of state approach.
🔥Bottom line: Getting hacked is bad. But when schools and governments are hacked it’s worse. This is a nice investment and an extra layer of protection for all of us. Just promise me when you use my computer, don’t look in the folder marked “private files.”
What do you think of the program?
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