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All Departments Administration Corrections Development Services Facilities Management Human Resources Information Technology Library Services Management and Budget Services Natural Resources Management Neighborhood and Human Services Parks and Recreation Public Safety Public Works Veterans Services Waste ServicesEscambia County staff and local stakeholders participated in the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Cybersecurity Incident response for IT Personnel course Wednesday, June 21 through Friday, June 23 at the Escambia County Public Safety building, continuing the county's dedication to being at the forefront of cybersecurity.
The three-day course for IT professionals is designed to address the specific technical skills needed for an effective response to a cyber attack, and it is only the second time the class has been offered anywhere. Staff from county, state, federal and critical infrastructure entities attended the course, which was sponsored by FEMA and delivered through a partnership between TEEX and Metova.
The course utilized the Metova Virtualized Cyber Classroom Environment® for hands-on incident simulation, which provides many features that resemble or imitate actual cyber incidents. Topics included types of cyber incidents and threats, impacts of cyber incidents, cyber incident management, detection and analysis, recovery, cybersecurity incident response exercises and advanced cyber incident response operations.
"This is a very new kind of course in that it's not geared towards the people that are in cyber," District 2 Commissioner and Chairman Doug Underhill said. "This is making IT professionals more aware of what an attack looks like and how to respond to an attack. It starts to build us as a collaborative group of IT professionals having resources that you can reach back to."
Underhill said courses like these are also important in promoting collaboration and a proactive approach to cybersecurity.
"Once you start collaborating, you start seeing the world differently," Underhill said. "Once you start collaborating – you start putting all of your resources in, somebody else puts their resources in – barriers start dropping. We start to get ahead of the problem. Instead of responding to the hacker, responding to threats, we're defending and building a network and community that is more resilient against those threats."
Agencies signed up to attend included Escambia County, Santa Rosa County, the City of Pensacola, First Judicial Circuit Court of Escambia County, Escambia County Clerk of Courts Office, State Attorney's Office, Emerald Coast Utilities Authority, University of West Florida, Escambia County School District and Baptist Healthcare.
For more information about FEMA, visit fema.gov.
The mission of Escambia County government is to provide efficient, responsive services that enhance our quality of life, meet common needs and promote a safe and healthy community.
Under Florida law, IP addresses and both the content of emails and email addresses are public records. If you do not want your IP address and the content of your email or your email address released in response to a public records request, do not send electronic mail to this entity. Instead, contact this office by phone or in person.