MIDLAND, Texas — It takes a lot of technology to keep a city up and running.
The City of Midland has over 400 laptops, 500 desktops and 100 servers.
There are over 1,000 city employees and many of them use technology every single day.That makes keeping the city’s cyber security safe a tricky job.
While it is always good to routinely update and change your password, the city says the biggest way it has protected itself from any type of hacking or malware is by making city employees more aware of cyber security.
"Municipalities are big targets right now," said Jennifer Frescaz, the City of Midland Chief Information Officer. "There’s more than 300,000 new malware variances distributed every day so we’re a big target just like anybody else.”
That is why the city is using October, National Cyber Security Awareness Month, to train city employees about cyber dangers. This is the city’s third year to participate in the national campaign.
“Having a strong password, reading emails carefully before you click on anything is important," Frescaz said. "If you have any doubts about what you’re receiving just delete it.”
Frescaz says it is important to have a conversation on cyber security in the work place.
"Don't let the word 'cyber' scare you," Frescaz said. "It’s security at the end of the day. We can’t leave our cars or our homes unlocked, and it's the exact same thing."
The city thinks normalizing it and making it a conversation for employees will be helpful. The more employees know about cyber security, the less likely the city will be hacked.
“Bringing employees along on the security ride is very helpful," Frescaz said. "Making them aware and part of the equation fills in the gaps of where our software might fall fall flat.”
As of Sep. 1, 2019, the State of Texas requires that state agency employees who use a computer 25% of the time must complete five cyber security trainings before June 2020.
The City of Midland says the new law will not change anything because they have already been hosting cyber security trainings for employees every October for three years.
For more information on how to protect your software click here.