Agenda

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12.

City Council Regular Meeting

Meeting Date:

07/07/2020

BACKGROUND

During the 2019 Legislative session the state enacted HB3434 which mandated that state agencies, counties and local government provide annual cybersecurity training to employees, as well as to all elected and appointed officials. The state Department of Information Resources (DIR) was charged with creating the specifications and coordinating compliance reporting. All agencies were required to submit their first annual compliance report no later than June 14th, 2020.

In response the City of Schertz IT Dept. crafted and conducted a city-wide Cyber Security training program using the DIR certified program offered by KnowBe4 – a vendor that the City was already using to test cyber security awareness. The training program began on April 6th. The City achieved 100% compliance with the mandate and submitted this information to the state on June 11th.

Feedback on the program was solicited from employees through surveys, and we will use the feedback we gathered from these sources to fine-tune the program for next year.

First, throughout the training process users were asked to rate the module(s) and provide comments. Our staff gave an overall rating during the training of 4.05 points out of 5 for Helpfulness, Length and Presentation.
The City conducted an after-event survey to allow staff to offer feedback, suggest changes, etc. More than 86% of our employees who responded rated the program as Good, Very Good, or Excellent.

Moving forward, as part of their orientation all new employees will be required to take the assessment and training during the first week on their employment. We plan to conduct our annual city-wide training for next year in March of 2021.

We are extremely proud that 100% of our employees and officials completed their training on time. We look forward to continuing our Cyber Security Awareness training to ensure that our employees have a better understanding of their role in protecting the City’s mission-critical information assets.

GOAL

Increase staff awareness on cyber security threats and how to better protect the City's mission-critical information assets

COMMUNITY BENEFIT

Statistics and news reports indicate the high costs to any organization that suffers a cyber security breach. Increased awareness of the role each employee has on cyber security provides a greater level of protection against cyber attacks, malware etc.

SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDED ACTION

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FISCAL IMPACT

$6,500 in addition to the lost work time for staff going through the training

RECOMMENDATION

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