NASCIO President Testifies Before Congress on State Cybersecurity Readiness

LEXINGTON, Ky., Wednesday, October 30 — On Wednesday, Craig Orgeron, President of the National Association Of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) and State of Mississippi’s Secretary of the Office of Information Technology Services, testified before the U.S. House of Representatives on the readiness of state IT systems.

Before a joint hearing of the Committee on Homeland Security’s Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Communications and Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies of the Homeland Security Committee, Orgeron explained that, “the state of Mississippi’s IT systems, like systems from all states, face cyber-attacks ranging from a few thousand stamps to as many as 10 million per day–some domestic, many international. To win this ongoing battle, state IT experts need to be right every time, while hackers need to be right only once. As these attacks continue to grow more sophisticated, both public and private sector entities will need to develop better tools and increase collaboration to both deter attacks and plan a coordinated response to contain the damage from successful attacks. “

Orgeron emphasized ongoing efforts to build better governance models and frameworks for securing state systems. In addition, Orgeron stressed the need for maturing the processes for collaboration between state and federal entities, along with the private sector.

To read the full testimony of President Orgeron, click here.

To see a video of the full hearing, click here.