Cybersecurity Awareness Month: Best Practices for Vulnerability Scanning and Management

October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month—a perfect time for public sector organizations to revisit their cybersecurity strategies and strengthen their defenses. Our previous blog discussed best practices for executing multifactor authentication, a cornerstone of strong security.

CJIS-Mandated Vulnerability-Management Deadline is Fast Approaching — Are You Ready?

Last December, the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) division issued a mandate that law-enforcement organizations wanting to access its databases must have a cybersecurity vulnerability-management program in place by October of this year.

Updated NIST Cybersecurity Framework Places Greater Emphasis on Governance

The Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) developed in 2014 by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has proved quite valuable. It is organized according to five key, easily understandable Core Functions: Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover.

Return on Mitigation Is a Concept Worth Understanding

Everyone seems to understand intuitively that cyberattacks are bad news, especially in the public sector. A ransomware attack could render an emergency communications center’s networks and systems inoperable for hours, days, weeks, even months, preventing the handling of 911 calls and the dispatching of life-saving response.

As Air Travel Increases, So Must Cybersecurity Vigilance

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) declared an end to the COVID-19 pandemic last May. The best evidence that the pandemic truly is over may be the continuing surge in air travel.

Let the Buyer Beware' Is a Good Adage to Embrace as It Pertains to Cybersecurity

Virtually everyone these days purchases goods and services via the internet because it is so easy and convenient, and often less costly. This is especially true during the holiday gift-giving season. The National Retail Federation (NRF) estimates that in the United States, ecommerce in November and December alone will range between $957.3

Cybersecurity Threat Advisory: Apache Struts Framework Vulnerability

As part of our effort to inform our clients about potential and serious cybersecurity issues, MCP provides advisories about vulnerabilities and exploits that could threaten the operations of their critical communications networks. Sign up to receive these advisories in your inbox as soon as they are released.

Cybersecurity Needs to Be as Offensive as It Is Defensive

The adage “the best defense is a good offense” is often attributed to Knute Rockne, the legendary football coach who roamed the sidelines at the University of Notre Dame early in the last century. But that might be incorrect.

Common Cybersecurity Mistakes And How to Prevent Them

Last month, MCP presented its fourth annual Conference for Advancing the Public Sector (CAPS), a virtual event during which our subject-matter experts and those from across the public-safety/justice ecosystem explored today’s most compelling challenges and opportunities.

Cybersecurity Threat Advisory: Israel-Hamas Conflict Creates a Cyberattack Surge

As part of our effort to inform our clients about potential and serious cybersecurity issues, MCP provides advisories about vulnerabilities and exploits that could threaten the operations of their critical communications networks.

The Scariest Public Sector Cybersecurity Trends Part 2

A previous blog explored one of the scariest trends about cybersecurity in the public sector, which is that many organizations still do not have it on their radar screens. However, this clearly is beginning to change due to several high-profile cyberattacks that occurred in the last couple of years. More evidence of this change can be found in the fact that cybersecurity was a hot topic at this year’s NENA and APCO conferences.

The Scariest Cybersecurity Trends Impacting the Public Sector

A recent article examined two of the scariest cybersecurity trends currently impacting public-sector organizations and their networks and systems.

One concern is the fact that public-sector organizations only recently have started to understand the severity of the cybersecurity problem.