The Department of Homeland Security published guidelines to help municipalities develop a strategy for building a secure “connected community,” which includes the digitalization of local government services.
The Connected Community Governance guide is the first of its kind and aims to help define smart service areas, set cybersecurity and privacy perimeters and establish performance metrics for urban, rural and all other types of communities, DHS announced Friday.
Smart services may be categorized in terms of ecological impact, public safety, transportation, government transparency, entrepreneurship and digital technology for individual residents. Municipalities can align their projects based on these areas.
To ensure that digitalization does not compromise consumer and government data, agencies must implement secure-by-design and secure-by-default principles in acquiring hardware and software systems.
DHS endorsed adoption of the CIA Triad, which prioritizes information integrity, confidentiality and restricted accessibility. Local leaders should install endpoint protection tools and prepare incident response and recovery plans to ensure resilience of connected communities, DHS said.
National security will be the center of the Potomac Officers’ Club’s event on Nov. 15. Join the 2023 Homeland Security Summit by registering now.
