As the cyber threat landscape continues to morph for entities at the Federal level, so too does it change for governments at the state, local, and tribal level. For the state of Illinois, adding cyber into emergency management and working closely with counties has helped to better prepare the state for cyber threats.

The Federal government must continue to prioritize data privacy and protection – including through legislation means – if it hopes to foster more safeguards for personal data in the private sector, said data experts at the 9th Annual Cyber Resilience Summit on October 12 hosted by CISQ.

Following on the successes of the FedRAMP program that certifies cloud services as secure to use for Federal government agencies, the home-grown StateRAMP program is forging ahead with similarly vital services to state and local governments and institutions of higher learning, state, and industry leaders explained on October 5 during MeriTalk’s StateRAMP: Taking the On-Ramp to Secure SLED Cloud Solutions online event.

Wisconsin’s Department of Workforce Development (DWD) has selected Flexion to identify and implement technology solutions for modernizing the states’ unemployment insurance (UI) system.

Better data and guidance can help states reinvest more than $800 million from fiscal year (FY) 2015-2019 in adoption savings – the result of 2008 legislation to increase Federal reimbursement of state assistance payments to adoptive families.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is moving to prevent robocallers calling 9-1-1 call centers and proposed a rule to fulfill a requirement from a 2012 law to create a public Do-Not-Call list for Public Safety Access Points (PSAPs).

 The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) received a mostly favorable review from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on how the agency is proceeding with improving broadband service access maps, but GAO also flagged that the FCC will face technological challenges with integrating disparate sources of broadband service location data.

In a bid to improve emergency communications in New York State, Gov. Kathy Hochul pledged $45 million in state funding to improve the operability of emergency communications statewide.

Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, the committee’s ranking member, have introduced legislation to require critical infrastructure entities to report cyberattacks to the Federal government, and to require most other entities to report to the government if they make a ransomware payment.

The FCC has announced a second set of awards for round two of its COVID-19 telehealth program, totaling more than $41.11 million to healthcare providers.