HB1297, the bill that would revise Florida’s current cybersecurity governance, is close to being approved by lawmakers following several incidents across the state, including a ransomware attack against Broward County Public Schools and the hacking of a local water treatment facility, reports StateScoop. The bill is based on a January report released by a 15-member task force and would give the Florida Digital Service more cybersecurity duties, such as creating a statewide plan that will be updated yearly, developing cybersecurity trainings for state employees and creating a 19-member Cybersecurity Advisory Council. Several state House committees have already unanimously approved the bill, while a companion legislation is being introduced to the state Senate. Lawmakers are also in the process of approving a spending plan for the 2022 fiscal year, which increases cybersecurity funding by $31.6 million. The added funding will be used to improve the state’s threat-assessment and endpoint detection tools, upgrade government websites and strengthen industrial control systems.
Jill Aitoro is senior vice president of content strategy for CyberRisk Alliance. She has more than 20 years of experience editing and reporting on technology, business and policy. Prior to joining CRA, she worked at Sightline Media as editor of Defense News and executive editor of the Business-to-Government Group. She previously worked at Washington Business Journal and Nextgov, covering federal technology, contracting and policy, as well as CMP Media’s VARBusiness and CRN and Penton Media’s iSeries News.
BleepingComputer reports that several U.S. financial institutions and numerous cryptocurrency apps are having their users mostly targeted by an expanded Xenomorph malware campaign leveraging an updated version of the Android banking trojan that also set sights on users in Canada, Italy, Spain, Belgium, and Portugal.