Florida mandates cybersecurity training for state workers

Increasingly prevalent and sophisticated cyberattacks have prompted Florida to require cybersecurity training for all its state employees through the CyberSecureFlorida Training Initiative, which seeks to bolster cyber resilience across the state, reports Fox 13 Tampa Bay. Included in the program is a session mainly for state and local government managers and executives that aims to bolster senior leadership positions' awareness of cybersecurity threats, as well as provide the necessary tools and resources necessary to defend their systems, according to Florida International University Institute for Public Policy's Brian Fonseca, who is included in the roster of training hosts. Such awareness of the cybersecurity threats against the state's infrastructure and the various attack techniques leveraged by threat actors have been deemed important by Fonseca to small governments. "They're going after smaller municipalities because they know that those smaller municipalities haven't had the kinds of resources to build really strong resiliency against outside attacks," said Fonseca.