CSIA 360 Week 5 UMGC: Cybersecurity in Government: Background Briefing: How will the Governor’s Initiatives Improve Cybersecurity for the State’s Critical Infrastructures?

For the week 5 discussion, we transition from federal to state critical infrastructure.

You are working for the Chief of Staff (CoS) for a newly elected Governor. The governor asked the CoS to research and prepare a 5- to 7-paragraph background briefing (backgrounder) that addresses the below question. The CoS will use this background briefing to prepare the Governor and his appointed cybersecurity director as they answer questions from the press and general-public.

You are not answering the questions as the governor, rather you are providing the governor the information s/he needs to answer the question.

The question: As governor, how will your administration improve cybersecurity for the state’s Critical Infrastructures?

The CoS asked you to research and prepare a draft for the background briefing. Your draft must provide enough information that the CoS and the Governor understand key terms that you use in your explanations. To that end, your draft briefing must answer the following questions:

• What is meant by “cybersecurity” for critical infrastructures?” Give examples of critical infrastructure associated with a specific state.
• What is meant by “Threats” (i.e. individual hackers, politically motivated hacktivists, criminal enterprises, and unfriendly “nation state” actors), countermeasures, and safeguards? Explain technical terms and examples.
• What are the three most important actions that the governor’s administration should take to help improve the security of critical infrastructures in the state? (You should identify and discuss these in greater detail than your response to the first two bullet points.)

Provide in-text citations and references for 3 or more authoritative sources. Put the reference list at the end of your posting.