Nevada lawmakers consider forming statewide security operations center

Nevada lawmakers are considering legislation that would create a statewide security operations center, offering school districts, local governments and other public offices in the Silver State greater access to cybersecurity services and products.

Timothy Galluzi, Nevada’s chief information officer, said the legislation is unique because participation by local governments would be optional — if the bills pass, governments will be allowed to opt in to the services they want as they strive to bolster their network defenses.

“We’re excited to extend services, to offer economies of scale and be able to raise the cybersecurity maturity for the entirety of the state,” Galluzi told StateScoop in an interview. “We’re really looking at a whole-of-state approach.”

The legislation would require any local governments opting into the center to adhere to the state’s cybersecurity standards, and they could face “additional oversight or audit requirements” set by the center’s chief, effectively holding them to the same standards as state agencies.

The legislature has until the close of the session on June 2 to pass the bills.

The center would also serve as a “fiscal agent,” allowing it to negotiate lower prices for products and services based on its larger user base.

“When we talk about finding efficiencies, this is the way,” Galluzi said. “We are looking for ways to create efficient and effective government to reduce duplication. This is one of the ways that we can do that.”

Whole-of-state approaches to cybersecurity governance have become more popular with state governments over the last five or six years, as cyberattacks have piled up against schools and local governments, where there’s less technical expertise and less money to spend on the latest technology.

In planning their security operations center, Galluzi said, Nevada officials have studied Texas, which operates regional SOCs staffed by university students. Texas CIO Amanda Crawford last year said the program was “paying dividends” by expanding the state’s cyber workforce pipeline and improving security statewide.

In addition to providing cybersecurity services, Galluzi said, the state government is also working with the Nevada System of Higher Education to encourage more students to study IT security. According to one recent analysis, there are more than 450,000 open cybersecurity jobs in the United States, but only enough workers to fill 83% of those roles.

“We want to use the security operation center as a way to bring in the next generation of cybersecurity talent into the Nevada workforce and hopefully into state government and local government,” Galluzi said.