How Can State and Local Agencies Better Collaborate on Cybersecurity?

PHIL GOLDSTEIN | February 12, 2020 | 146 views

Some state governments, such as Massachusetts, have established formal plans to work with localities within their states on cybersecurity. However, as ransomware attacks proliferate across the country and strike big cities and small towns alike, state-level organizations say there needs to be greater IT security coordination between states and municipalities. Last month, the National Governors Association and the National Association of State Chief Information Officers released a report, “Stronger Together: State and Local Cybersecurity Collaboration,” designed to showcase best practices for such collaboration.

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MAS National

MAS National is a not-for-profit organisation that is leading the way in creating end-to-end solutions for workforce participation throughout Australia. At MAS, our core focuses are: employment outcomes, business partnerships and career advice. We proudly believe in helping Australians to realise their employment potential and achieve their career dreams.

OTHER ARTICLES
EMERGING TECHNOLOGY, GOVERNMENT BUSINESS

Securing the Government Cloud

Article | October 7, 2022

Federal agencies have been migrating data and workloads to the cloud for over a decade now, but the ever-changing technology landscape can make it difficult to keep up with cybersecurity needs. Several government agencies have a role in ensuring federal cloud architectures are secure, including the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, or FedRAMP, the central office for certifying commercial cloud products have a baseline of cybersecurity. The FedRAMP program—and any program that grants an authority to operate, or ATO—has long been a roadblock to agile IT deployments, as the process is often time- and resource-intensive. The program office is trying to change that, and recently asked stakeholders from government and industry for feedback on what needs fixing.

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GOVERNMENT BUSINESS

Bill Offers $400M for State, Local Government Cybersecurity

Article | July 14, 2022

With state and local governments beset by a precipitous rise in cyberattacks, new federal legislation might provide some necessary cover where needed. The State and Local Cybersecurity Improvement Act would create a grant program worth $400 million to finance cybersecurity efforts in communities across the country, according to a release. Eligible communities would be able to apply for funds, provided through the Department of Homeland Security, which would be allocated to assist in areas like vulnerability scanning and testing, cyberworkforce development and intelligence sharing, according to the bill text.

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GOVERNMENT BUSINESS, GOVERNMENT FINANCE

U.S. Air Force and Microsoft partner to empower airmen with modern IT

Article | July 12, 2022

The U.S. Air Force is breaking the glass as a leader in harnessing the power of cloud, rapidly rolling out modern services to enable airmen to advance the mission through more effective collaboration. As part of their digital transformation journey to achieve global access, persistence, and awareness for the 21st century, the U.S. Air Force is deploying targeted workloads that allow airmen to focus on their missions rather than spending time managing IT infrastructure.

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How 3 U.S. government agencies use Smartsheet to achieve their missions

Article | February 10, 2020

Federal government agencies use Smartsheet Gov, a work execution platform designed especially for government agencies, to make work processes more speedy and effective, empower their workers to have higher visibility into information and metrics, and ultimately achieve more. Federal agencies are looking for ways to drive efficiencies, break down silos, reduce costs, and ultimately to achieve their missions. Read on to learn from three organizations about how the Smartsheet Gov platform helps them manage information, projects, programs, and processes.

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Spotlight

MAS National

MAS National is a not-for-profit organisation that is leading the way in creating end-to-end solutions for workforce participation throughout Australia. At MAS, our core focuses are: employment outcomes, business partnerships and career advice. We proudly believe in helping Australians to realise their employment potential and achieve their career dreams.

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GOVERNMENT BUSINESS

Indigov Receives $25 Million in Series B Funding

Indigov | May 31, 2022

Tusk Venture Partners, 8VC, Wicklow Capital, Align Ventures, and Valor Equity Partners participated in a $25 million Series B investment round for Indigov, the premier constituent service platform for public officials. This takes the total amount raised by the company to more than $38.3 million. Indigov is a multi-channel constituent experience management platform that helps public officials organize, respond to, and engage those they serve proactively. It was launched in 2019. Officials may get real-time insight into the pulse of their constituency thanks to the platform's rich reporting and analytics. Indigov is also used by the federal, state, and local governments to manage casework and triage incoming communications that might otherwise clog their inboxes. Indigov presently helps hundreds of congressional, state, and municipal leaders who represent more than 150 million people in the United States. Americans have relied on their government for aid more than ever in the last two years during the pandemic, from obtaining COVID and unemployment resources to expressing political expression. In general, the number of contacts with public authorities has gone up five times in the last ten years. This is partly because people now have more ways to get in touch, such as through email and social media. Staffing, budgets, and technology, on the other hand, have stayed unchanged. This has put a lot of pressure on employees, as well as disillusionment among voters and a loss of faith in our government. The U.S. government receives close to 53 billion requests a year from the public, the vast majority of which are managed in spreadsheets, email, physical paper, and outdated legacy databases. No company could function managing the level of communications public officials receive with the tools they use - when they fail, we all fail." Alex Kouts, CEO and Founder of Indigov Alex further added that these touch points are the democratic user experience, and they must be improved. Every day, they collaborate with government authorities to provide a service that not only meets but exceeds, private market expectations. They are making a whole new category of software to change the way people interact with the government from the ground up.

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EMERGING TECHNOLOGY

SDI Presence Announces Enhanced Advisory Services Delivery Model and Practice Leadership Promotions

SDI Presence LLC | May 16, 2022

SDI Presence LLC (SDI), an IT consultancy and managed services provider (MSP), announces the update of its technology-focused delivery model to best meet the changing needs of its government technology clients. These new positions – along with a new team structure and expanded delivery methodologies – will allow SDI to better share our depth of knowledge in government enterprise technologies by leveraging our broad experience working with municipalities, special districts, counties, and state government agencies." Jonathan Gair, Vice President of Operations at SDI Presence SDI's shift toward a horizontally focused practice model is designed to best position the firm's subject matter expertise to directly impact customer value. Issues with designing, configuring, and testing systems tend to re-occur across technology partners, leading to frustration, inefficiencies, and sometimes flawed deployments. With its new model, SDI is positioning its expert Practice Leads to deliver industry-specific and well-honed methodologies, content, test cases, and design planning services, supported by the SDI consultant team. "SDI is growing," Jonathan Gair added. "We did not want to lose sight of what makes us unique: our local presence. Now, our directors will be more available to help clients improve services, while our practice leads maintain ownership of the day-to-day project oversight role." To lead this enhanced Advisory practice, SDI has promoted four experienced SDI personnel to the newly created positions of Practice Leads, with each serving as the leader of a specific technology area: IT Strategic Planning: Project Manager Lee Curtis will build on his over 40 years of experience leading over 50 IT Strategic Plans and Assessments, and previous experience as a public sector IT Director and CIO. Land Management Systems (LMS): Project Manager Rick Keyes, a 30-year veteran who specializes in IT and vendor management with state governments and holds PMP and Prosci OCM certifications, will lead the Land Management System (LMS) practice. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP): Project Managers David Gougis and Wendell Yacur will co-lead SDI's ERP practice, building on their combined half century of experience working as advisors to the public sector space. Wendell Yacur is a 30-year IT professional with a focus on management consulting for state governments, while David Gougis has more than 30 years of experience in both technology and finance consulting and as held Lead roles for public sector agencies. Supporting each Lead will be a regionally focused Director of Operations that is dedicated to client success. "I truly believe that Rick, Lee, David and Wendell represent one of the strongest, most experienced teams available to organizations," said Hardik Bhatt, President and Chief Growth Office of SDI Presence. "Their backgrounds in procurements, implementations and strategic planning make them subject matter experts in systems that often touch all departments within an organization, meaning they can help facilitate even the toughest, most challenging projects." These promotions occur as SDI Presence is seeing substantial growth in its government and utilities practices. Seasoned cloud and IT managed services industry leaders Hardik Bhatt, Prasad Alavilli, and Sunil Thomas recently joined SDI, as the firm aggressively builds out legacy IT modernization solutions. In 2021, SDI announced that the firm secured an infusion of private equity capital with Abry Partners, a Boston, Massachusetts-based private equity firm, to fund its growth. About SDI Presence LLC SDI Presence LLC is an IT consultancy and managed services provider (MSP) that leverages its strong team presence to advance our clients to a secure digital enterprise. With a 25-year corporate resume, SDI delivers strategic managed services, IT consulting, and hybrid infrastructure solutions to optimize our clients' technology environments. SDI is a certified Minority Business Enterprise (MBE), with a portfolio of clients that includes some of the nation's largest airports, utilities, commercial real estate portfolios, and government agencies.

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CYBERSECURITY

Carahsoft Receives Exclusive 2022 BlackBerry NALA Distributor Partner of the Year Award at BlackBerry Partner Cybersecurity Sales

Carahsoft | April 19, 2022

Carahsoft Technology Corp., the Trusted Government IT Solutions Provider announced that it has been named the 2022 BlackBerry NALA Distributor of the Year. On April 5-6, 2022, BlackBerry hosted a virtual partner sales event with the theme “The Power of…”, which highlighted the power of partnership and vision, joint market opportunities, and technical strategy. The virtual event attracted more than 300 global solution providers, MSSPs, and distributors. We value our long-standing partnership with Blackberry and are honored to be named the Distributor Partner of the Year for North America and Latin America for 2022.” Michael Shrader, Vice President of Innovative and Intelligence Solutions at Carahsoft BlackBerry recognized winners in four categories, and three regions representing North America and Latin America; Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA); and Asia-Pacific (APAC). Award winners were selected from among the thousands of BlackBerry partners based on their commitment to innovation and differentiation of BlackBerry cybersecurity products and brand in the market. The award winners also align with BlackBerry’s strategy and commitment to driving exponential new business growth. “We are thrilled to honor these outstanding partners and extremely proud to work with the Carahsoft team to ensure our customers are both secure and protected amidst a threat landscape that continues to increase in both scale and complexity. We look forward to building on our shared success in the months and years to come.” Colleen McMillan, Vice President, Global Channel Sales, Cybersecurity. About Carahsoft Carahsoft Technology Corp. is The Trusted Government IT Solutions Provider, supporting Public Sector organizations across Federal, State and Local Government agencies and Education and Healthcare markets. As the Master Government Aggregator for our vendor partners, we deliver solutions for Cybersecurity, MultiCloud, DevSecOps, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Open Source, Customer Experience and Engagement, and more. Working with resellers, systems integrators and consultants, our sales and marketing teams provide industry leading IT products, services and training through hundreds of contract vehicles.

Read More

GOVERNMENT BUSINESS

Indigov Receives $25 Million in Series B Funding

Indigov | May 31, 2022

Tusk Venture Partners, 8VC, Wicklow Capital, Align Ventures, and Valor Equity Partners participated in a $25 million Series B investment round for Indigov, the premier constituent service platform for public officials. This takes the total amount raised by the company to more than $38.3 million. Indigov is a multi-channel constituent experience management platform that helps public officials organize, respond to, and engage those they serve proactively. It was launched in 2019. Officials may get real-time insight into the pulse of their constituency thanks to the platform's rich reporting and analytics. Indigov is also used by the federal, state, and local governments to manage casework and triage incoming communications that might otherwise clog their inboxes. Indigov presently helps hundreds of congressional, state, and municipal leaders who represent more than 150 million people in the United States. Americans have relied on their government for aid more than ever in the last two years during the pandemic, from obtaining COVID and unemployment resources to expressing political expression. In general, the number of contacts with public authorities has gone up five times in the last ten years. This is partly because people now have more ways to get in touch, such as through email and social media. Staffing, budgets, and technology, on the other hand, have stayed unchanged. This has put a lot of pressure on employees, as well as disillusionment among voters and a loss of faith in our government. The U.S. government receives close to 53 billion requests a year from the public, the vast majority of which are managed in spreadsheets, email, physical paper, and outdated legacy databases. No company could function managing the level of communications public officials receive with the tools they use - when they fail, we all fail." Alex Kouts, CEO and Founder of Indigov Alex further added that these touch points are the democratic user experience, and they must be improved. Every day, they collaborate with government authorities to provide a service that not only meets but exceeds, private market expectations. They are making a whole new category of software to change the way people interact with the government from the ground up.

Read More

EMERGING TECHNOLOGY

SDI Presence Announces Enhanced Advisory Services Delivery Model and Practice Leadership Promotions

SDI Presence LLC | May 16, 2022

SDI Presence LLC (SDI), an IT consultancy and managed services provider (MSP), announces the update of its technology-focused delivery model to best meet the changing needs of its government technology clients. These new positions – along with a new team structure and expanded delivery methodologies – will allow SDI to better share our depth of knowledge in government enterprise technologies by leveraging our broad experience working with municipalities, special districts, counties, and state government agencies." Jonathan Gair, Vice President of Operations at SDI Presence SDI's shift toward a horizontally focused practice model is designed to best position the firm's subject matter expertise to directly impact customer value. Issues with designing, configuring, and testing systems tend to re-occur across technology partners, leading to frustration, inefficiencies, and sometimes flawed deployments. With its new model, SDI is positioning its expert Practice Leads to deliver industry-specific and well-honed methodologies, content, test cases, and design planning services, supported by the SDI consultant team. "SDI is growing," Jonathan Gair added. "We did not want to lose sight of what makes us unique: our local presence. Now, our directors will be more available to help clients improve services, while our practice leads maintain ownership of the day-to-day project oversight role." To lead this enhanced Advisory practice, SDI has promoted four experienced SDI personnel to the newly created positions of Practice Leads, with each serving as the leader of a specific technology area: IT Strategic Planning: Project Manager Lee Curtis will build on his over 40 years of experience leading over 50 IT Strategic Plans and Assessments, and previous experience as a public sector IT Director and CIO. Land Management Systems (LMS): Project Manager Rick Keyes, a 30-year veteran who specializes in IT and vendor management with state governments and holds PMP and Prosci OCM certifications, will lead the Land Management System (LMS) practice. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP): Project Managers David Gougis and Wendell Yacur will co-lead SDI's ERP practice, building on their combined half century of experience working as advisors to the public sector space. Wendell Yacur is a 30-year IT professional with a focus on management consulting for state governments, while David Gougis has more than 30 years of experience in both technology and finance consulting and as held Lead roles for public sector agencies. Supporting each Lead will be a regionally focused Director of Operations that is dedicated to client success. "I truly believe that Rick, Lee, David and Wendell represent one of the strongest, most experienced teams available to organizations," said Hardik Bhatt, President and Chief Growth Office of SDI Presence. "Their backgrounds in procurements, implementations and strategic planning make them subject matter experts in systems that often touch all departments within an organization, meaning they can help facilitate even the toughest, most challenging projects." These promotions occur as SDI Presence is seeing substantial growth in its government and utilities practices. Seasoned cloud and IT managed services industry leaders Hardik Bhatt, Prasad Alavilli, and Sunil Thomas recently joined SDI, as the firm aggressively builds out legacy IT modernization solutions. In 2021, SDI announced that the firm secured an infusion of private equity capital with Abry Partners, a Boston, Massachusetts-based private equity firm, to fund its growth. About SDI Presence LLC SDI Presence LLC is an IT consultancy and managed services provider (MSP) that leverages its strong team presence to advance our clients to a secure digital enterprise. With a 25-year corporate resume, SDI delivers strategic managed services, IT consulting, and hybrid infrastructure solutions to optimize our clients' technology environments. SDI is a certified Minority Business Enterprise (MBE), with a portfolio of clients that includes some of the nation's largest airports, utilities, commercial real estate portfolios, and government agencies.

Read More

CYBERSECURITY

Carahsoft Receives Exclusive 2022 BlackBerry NALA Distributor Partner of the Year Award at BlackBerry Partner Cybersecurity Sales

Carahsoft | April 19, 2022

Carahsoft Technology Corp., the Trusted Government IT Solutions Provider announced that it has been named the 2022 BlackBerry NALA Distributor of the Year. On April 5-6, 2022, BlackBerry hosted a virtual partner sales event with the theme “The Power of…”, which highlighted the power of partnership and vision, joint market opportunities, and technical strategy. The virtual event attracted more than 300 global solution providers, MSSPs, and distributors. We value our long-standing partnership with Blackberry and are honored to be named the Distributor Partner of the Year for North America and Latin America for 2022.” Michael Shrader, Vice President of Innovative and Intelligence Solutions at Carahsoft BlackBerry recognized winners in four categories, and three regions representing North America and Latin America; Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA); and Asia-Pacific (APAC). Award winners were selected from among the thousands of BlackBerry partners based on their commitment to innovation and differentiation of BlackBerry cybersecurity products and brand in the market. The award winners also align with BlackBerry’s strategy and commitment to driving exponential new business growth. “We are thrilled to honor these outstanding partners and extremely proud to work with the Carahsoft team to ensure our customers are both secure and protected amidst a threat landscape that continues to increase in both scale and complexity. We look forward to building on our shared success in the months and years to come.” Colleen McMillan, Vice President, Global Channel Sales, Cybersecurity. About Carahsoft Carahsoft Technology Corp. is The Trusted Government IT Solutions Provider, supporting Public Sector organizations across Federal, State and Local Government agencies and Education and Healthcare markets. As the Master Government Aggregator for our vendor partners, we deliver solutions for Cybersecurity, MultiCloud, DevSecOps, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Open Source, Customer Experience and Engagement, and more. Working with resellers, systems integrators and consultants, our sales and marketing teams provide industry leading IT products, services and training through hundreds of contract vehicles.

Read More

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