To: Board of Supervisors
From: County Administrative Office
Agenda Section: Consent
SUBJECT:
title
Information Security Program Charter
end
RECOMMENDATION(S):
Recommendation
That the Board of Supervisors:
1. Approve the attached Information Security Program Charter; and
2. Designate the Senior Security Analyst III over the Information Security Working Group as the County of Humboldt's Information Security Officer.
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SOURCE OF FUNDING:
All county funds
DISCUSSION:
As the county builds an increasingly complex world of connected information systems and devices, and responds to changing work environments, security and privacy continue to dominate the County of Humboldt's Information Technology (IT) requirements.
The cyber threat to the county's IT infrastructure is outpacing efforts to reduce pervasive vulnerabilities, so that the County of Humboldt must lean significantly on deterrence to address cyber threats. Victims of the eleven (11) largest ransomware attacks in 2020 have spent at least One Hundred Forty-Four Million Two Hundred Thousand Dollars ($144,200,000.00) on costs ranging from investigating the attack, rebuilding networks and restoring backups to paying the hackers ransom and putting preventative measures in place to avoid future incidents. The victims allegedly paid a ransom in seven (7) of the cases. Five (5) of the ransomware victims were municipal governments, while the remaining victims spanned verticals from legal, manufacturing and financial services to IT services, facility management and higher education.
A more proactive and systematic approach to cyber deterrence is needed. There is a pressing need to further strengthen the underlying information systems, component products and services that the county depends on in every department - ensuring that those systems, components and services are sufficiently trustworthy and provide the necessary resilience to support the economic and IT security interests of the Coun...
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