State Cyber Disruption Response Plans

Governors must now be prepared to respond to the growing threat of cyberattacks. States and territories count on experienced teams of public safety and emergency management (EM) professionals to prepare for, respond to and recover from natural and human-made disasters. With the integration of information technology (IT) into critical services, state and territorial officials must now expand their focus to consider the consequences of cyberattacks that have physical impacts and threaten public safety. Malicious actors have already shown a keen interest in targeting state and local assets. In 2016, a ransomware attack disrupted operations at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. The following year, malware shuttered the largest terminal at the Port of Los Angeles. In 2018, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper declared a state of emergency, the first of its kind, after a ransomware attack infected 150 servers and 2,000 computers operated by the Colorado Department of Transportation (DOT).