(Joe Raedle/Getty Images via the North Dakota Monitor)
() – For the first half of his career in law enforcement, working as a police officer in South Florida, Chase Fopiano did not think cyberattacks on police agencies were a serious threat.
Many of his law enforcement colleagues were under the same impression — that since they were the most likely to investigate the attacks, there was no way cybercriminals would go after them.
By about 2015, as technology advanced and hackers became more creative, that changed, Fopiano said. Now, from the U.S. Secret Service to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, there are thousands of attempts to compromise networks or organizations every day, he said.
“A lot of those [attempts] are toward government or even police, especially because they know that we’re not as prepared as we should be,” said Fopiano, who now oversees cybersecurity as part of a regional task force.
Spanning health care facilities to court systems, states and local communities are facing a rise in cyberthreats. They include threats to critical infrastructure, increased activity from foreign actors, continued ransomware attacks and more, according to a recent report from the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center.
Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.
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