At the #CyberCivilDefense Summit, @politico's Maggie Miller sat down with New York’s Chief Cyber Officer, Colin Ahern, to discuss the State’s “whole-of-state” approach to cybersecurity. 🗽⬇️Officer Ahern pinpointed several key cybersecurity trends in New York:
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Primary threat actors include: 💵 Financially motivated #ransomware groups from the Russian criminal ecosystem ⚠️ Nation-state actors targeting critical #infrastructure to conduct espionage or pre-positioning to inflict damage ⚡️ Ideologically-motivated political extremist groups
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➡️ Ransomware gangs are increasingly using “triple extortion” tactics to increase pressure on victims to pay ransoms. Adversaries not only steal or encrypt data, but they also dox, threaten, harass, and swat members of the senior leadership team until a payment is made.
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Attackers are adapting their methods because the cyber insurance market is tightening and regulatory pressure is increasing. In response, they are using more personal, public, and painful tactics to increase pressure on victims and improve their chances of a payout.
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New York is responding with strategic coordination and investment by: 📜Establishing cost-conscious minimum cybersecurity standards for critical, lifeline infrastructure sectors 💰Creating grant programs to help entities meet new requirements
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➕Adding $100M to the state budget for remediating legacy systems and ensuring security basics like MFA are in place 🤝Offering shared cybersecurity services to counties and municipalities through New York’s Joint Security Operations Center (JSOC)
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💡Officer Ahern emphasized that cybersecurity funding and regulation must go hand-in-hand. States can’t cut their way to resilience, and they can’t protect what they don’t invest in.
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