Utah Cyber Center reaches out to special districts

The Utah Cyber Center was formed to provide a statewide strategic cybersecurity plan for government entities, according to the Utah Government’s website. This will take place by June. It also incorporates the previously formed Enterprise Security Services into this single entity. The ESS previously worked on cybersecurity solely for the executive branch of government.

We wanted to give special district members an overview of what the Utah Cyber Center is working on, as it greatly affects the online security of all governmental groups.

More on the UCC’s purpose

To start, let’s talk about why the Utah Cyber Center is in place. Its website lists the main duties of the group:

• Promote best practices for cybersecurity
• Receive reports of system security breaches
• Coordinate breach response efforts between state, local, and federal groups
• Share intelligence on potential cybersecurity concerns
• Create partnerships with higher education to support cybersecurity career development

The outreach to city and county groups throughout the state includes some programs that have already gotten off the ground. The services are as follows:

• Endpoint protection services, which provide advanced security and are supported by a 24/7 team of security analysts
• Security awareness training platform to educate government entities
• Vulnerability management services to find potential concerns within individual systems
• Vouchers for training and exams for IT staff through companies such as CompTIA and EC-Council.

What’s next?

The UCC’s biggest priorities are to assess cybersecurity across the public work spectrum, to find gaps, and to answer those through its programs. It also wants to develop a model with its services and other support at the center.

Funding is also an important part of the group’s efforts. They are seeking to find more of it through state and local funding, as well as federal grants, all to ensure that they can still be in operation after legislature funding runs out.

As for future outreach efforts, there are plans for continued support and improvement to the duties above. The group will also identify the next steps or potential new projects, all centered on risk management and strengthening cyber-resilience.

What we can do 



We encourage you to read the PDF that is uploaded on our website which goes into even more detail about the UCC, including information on how to get involved. We’ll also be watching for any changes or launches of programs from this important group. To find out more about the UASD and what we do, please also visit our website.