Minnesota has released an updated five-year information security plan with a funding request for nearly $20 million to solidify its cyber defenses.
According to the plan, the state of Minnesota’s systems are probed and scanned nearly 3 million times each day, and global threats are originating from more than 150 countries.
It points out that if state systems were to go down, more than $28 billion in annual transactions would be at risk, and calls for “aggressive” funding and implementation to consolidate state systems in secure data centers. It also calls for funding for shared advanced security and monitoring tools.
The plan cites a number of recent high-profile cyber attacks, including a ransomware attack in Atlanta that affected residents’ ability to pay municipal bills, and the recent WannaCry attack, which affected at least 75,000 computers in 99 countries.
It says that the additional cybersecurity funding requested would be split between tools, security operations center staff and private-sector security services.
