State & Local Spotlight
In an effort to keep all digital workloads protected and up- to-date, whether they sit in offices or
State & Local Government Cyber Protection Needs
In recent years, state and local governments have suffered a continuous spate of highly publicized cyberattacks against targets as varied as local police departments and court offices to school districts. Between 2013 and April 2019, at least 169 ransomware attacks occurred against American county, city, and state targets, including two dozen against US municipalities in the first half of 2019 alone. Since 2013, all US states except one have reported a ransomware attack, with many suffering multiple. These public figures represent just the tip of the proverbial ransomware iceberg.
In addition to addressing this worrying trend, state and local governments must also contend with the difficulty of maximizing productivity and cyber protection across their enterprise’s various offices and departments with only small IT staffs and budgets. First up, productivity. With traditional imaging methods, state and local governments often waste hours upon hours provisioning new systems (a fleet of police cars, for example) or refreshing old ones (say, wiping public library computers at the end of the day or providing technical updates en masse). Second, keeping data secure and ensuring operational continuity can be tricky and time-consuming with outdated cyber protection solutions and limited resources in terms of time, people, and funds.
