Cyber engagement from elected leaders still lacking

Only 19% of city and county IT officials across the U.S. reported having elected leaders who were "very engaged" in cybersecurity matters, which is lower than 22% last year, while 61% had officials who were only "somewhat" engaged in tackling cybersecurity issues and the remainder were totally not involved in cybersecurity discussions, StateScoop reports. Enterprisewide cybersecurity policies concerning employee behavior and operational protections were noted to have been implemented in the city and county governments of 81% of the respondents, with 50% of organizations' incident response plans subjected to regular testing, but only 39% of respondents noted their governments to have the chief information security officer position, according to a survey from CompTIA's Public Technology Institute. Cybersecurity funding was cited to be insufficient by 63% of respondents but 70% noted that their budgets rose over the past 12 months. The report also showed that not much impact is expected from the Department of Homeland Security's state and local cyber grant program. "While the federal funding for state and local cyber programs helps, it is not the 'pot of gold at the end of the rainbow' that some might have envisioned," said CompTIA Public Technology Institute Executive Director Alan Shark.