Pa. local governments want long-term state money for cybersecurity as federal grant fills the gap – By Min Xian (Spotlight Pa State College) / March 17, 2024
This story was produced by the State College regional bureau of Spotlight PA, an independent, nonpartisan newsroom dedicated to investigative and public-service journalism for Pennsylvania. Sign up for our north-central Pa. newsletter, Talk of the Town, at spotlightpa.org/newsletters/talkofthetown.
STATE COLLEGE — Local governments in Pennsylvania could soon have access to up to $25 million in federal funding to help them prepare for digital security threats facing critical infrastructure, according to Gov. Josh Shapiro’s budget proposal.
But county and municipal leaders say that money won’t be enough to keep up with mandatory technology updates, higher insurance rates, and the rise of artificial intelligence, which have all added to cybersecurity costs.
“Our cybersecurity technology spending has more than tripled over the last four years, and this trend can be seen across all counties due to the evolving threat landscape,” Joe Sassano, executive director of information technology for York County, told state lawmakers in January.
Local government officials and state legislators see cyberattacks as a growing threat. In November, a cyberattack halted pumping equipment of the Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa in western Pennsylvania. In January, the Bucks County 911 dispatch system had a nine-day outage because of a ransomware attack.
