InterDev

That’s a wrap on the 2024 Fall Georgia GMIS conference. We (Brett W. Lavender, CPM®, CGCIO™ and Brian Troup) enjoyed interacting with the public servants who keep our public sector agencies working! Congrats to our giveaway winner, Rockdale County IT Director Margaret Moore-Jackson. We look forward to the spring conference. Please reach out if you need any help with your IT environment. #gagmis

October is #Cybersecurity Awareness Month, so I’m sharing Jesse Cail's insights on approaching it as a team sport. Cybersecurity has garnered a reputation as the neighborhood curmudgeon shouting "Get off my lawn" from a darkened window to passersby who stray a bit too far from the sidewalk. But a good cybersecurity program requires the entire organization to embrace it as a team, each playing their part to achieve a common goal: Company leadership, from executives to team leaders, must support and enforce a cohesive cybersecurity strategy.  A cybersecurity champion, who develops a strategy that balances security with operational needs and risk tolerance, and effectively communicates that strategy both up and down the chain.  Your IT team, the true engine of your cybersecurity program, is responsible for deliberate and quality engineering, configuration management and ongoing maintenance, ensuring the foundation for a good program. Your staff is simultaneously your first and last lines of defense. They are likely to be the ones who first report some type of anomaly. They need to be equipped, enabled, and educated to be effective at monitoring and reporting potential security incidents.  We need each other to be successful, especially when working to establish effective cybersecurity that fends off everything from low level spammers and website defacers to sophisticated, multi-faceted attacks. To achieve that, your employees need to work and train together as a team, to ensure a security program that that’s effective now and can adapt to the challenges ahead.