Greene County supervisor Guy Richardson and county IT director Michelle Fields were among more than 150 county and city officials who attended a recent one-day educational conference in Johnston that was co-sponsored by the Iowa State Association of Counties (ISAC), the Iowa League of Cities, and the County Strategic Technology Advisory Resource (CoSTAR) in cooperation with the Iowa Communities Assurance Pool (ICAP).
All local government officials were encouraged to attend and learned about protecting “you, your organization, and your information.” Attendees learned about the vulnerability of work and personal email, cellphones, computers and more through a variety of speakers and panel presenters.
Keynote speaker was Michael Bazzell, a renowned computer crime specialist formerly assigned to the FBI’s Cyber Crime Task Force. His session focused on recent trends of online fraud, computer intrusion, and ways that suspects steal valuable data.
Jo Ellen Whitney from the Davis Brown Law Firm presented to the local government officials about the types of personal information and the obligations (and associated consequences) of local government officials to protect this information. Concurrently, the county and city technology professionals gained a better technical understanding of practices that will strengthen cyber security activities from Bazzell. A panel presentation focused on the resources that are available to local governments to help prepare for and prevent a cyber-attack concluded the conference. Panelists included professionals from the insurance and banking industries as well as representatives from local, state and federal governments.
“Cyber-security is becoming an ever-present threat to local governments. This conference provided attendees with proactive information that will help them to protect taxpayer data, information and money” said Bill Peterson, ISAC executive director.
“I commend all of the local government officials who attended this conference to better their understanding of the technology threats that exist today.”
