Kentucky’s cyber security defenses fend off an average of 92,000 security threats a day
By Mark Vanderhoff
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LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (WLKY) — The cyber attacks on the Colonial Pipeline and JBS Swift have exposed how vulnerable America is to this 21st century threat.
So how prepared is our state government? Josh Keats is at the frontline of the battle against cyber attacks with his role as Kentucky’s director of homeland security.
“What keeps me up at night is making sure we stay on top and that we are constantly trying to stay ahead of the cyber hackers,” Keats said.
Kentucky’s cyber security defenses fend off an average of 92,000 security events a day, according to the Commonwealth Office of Technology. Many of those events are simply phishing emails.
“A lot of the reason you never hear about them is because they never get anywhere,” he said.
Still, the problem is bad enough that Metro Louisville is working with the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security to address weaknesses found in a recent cyber security assessment of the city.
“One of the things it identified was that the password habits of metro employees were, to put it mildly, atrocious,” said James Meece, chief information security officer for Metro Government.
A city official recently told the Metro Council’s public safety committee they discovered 17 people had the same password. Keats said small mistakes like that can be costly.
“It’s not always some hacker who’s brilliant in coding. It’s usually levied through some sort of email that looks legitimate, but it’s not,” Keats said.
Keats said one of the most important things government agencies and businesses can do is teach their employees good cyber habits. That means cybersecurity is everyone’s responsibility.
Another concern for businesses is employees’ smartphones and apps which are increasingly able to track location, activity and even conversations.
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