For cybersecurity leaders in local governments across the U.S., the rapid move to remote work marked a big shift in information security operations, especially in smaller departments with limited resources.
“You know the word challenge, challenging is an understatement,” Chris Mitchell, Houston’s chief information security officer, says on the latest episode of StateScoop’s LocalSmart Awards podcast.
When Houston city staff went home in March to work remotely as the pandemic spread across the U.S., Mitchell says he had to balance the need to maintain the security of the city’s assets while navigating an expanded threat landscape that reached all the way to employees’ homes.
When the pandemic hit in full force, Oakland County, Michigan, CISO T.J. Fields was only five months into his time in the role.
“We went from a county whose explicit policy was ‘you need to be in your seat to get paid’ to a county that was about 90% remote work,” Fields says on the podcast. “Certainly a large portion of my role for the first few months of the COVID lockdown we continued to refine our controls, and ever since it’s definitely been a challenge.”
On the podcast:
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The LocalSmart podcast is a five-part miniseries highlighting the winners of the 2020 LocalSmart Awards.
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