In early April, ASP’s Business Council Chair, Dante Disparte, wrote an article in Forbes about what can be learned from the recent cyberattack in Atlanta. The attack rendered numerous essential citizen services systems crippled, impacting daily operations of the local government. Disparte argues that, “whether Atlanta paid the cyber ransom or not, cities are in the crosshairs of cyber and other man-made risks posing serious threats to national security.” Because of the lack of synchronization or critical systems and harmonization of third parties, government agencies make for easy targets of ransomware attacks. The attack in Atlanta shows the potential difficulty of response and recovery if an attack was focused on terrorism or warfare.

Disparte points out that “cyber risk is more of a continuity of government than a matter of privacy and the provision of basic citizen services.” The core of his argument is that prevention of cyberattacks is better than reacting. Additionally, because cyber threats exploit the weakest link in a system, a collective defense will be more effective to improve the system’s resilience overall.

Read the full article here:

Cities Held For Ransom – Lessons From Atlanta’s Cyber Extortion

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