As cyberattacks continue to threaten communities nationwide, Bay Area counties are taking proactive steps to strengthen preparedness and deter bad actors online. The County of Marin recently hosted nearly 150 participants from counties, cities, special districts, and critical infrastructure sectors across 14 jurisdictions.
“This was groundbreaking because it was the first event of its kind for municipal agencies,” said Jason Balderama, the County’s Chief Information Security Officer. “These types of exercises are essential for building a coordinated cyber-incident response across the Bay Area. By working together, we can better prepare for and mitigate the impact of cyber incidents that threaten our communities.”
The 2024 Cyber Bridge tabletop exercise at the Marin County Civic Center was sponsored and cohosted by the Bay Area Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI), a group founded in 2006 and tied to the federal Homeland Security Act of 2002. The County of Marin is one of 12 counties that make up Bay Area UASI. Bay Area UASI sustains and improves regional capacity to prevent, protect against, mitigate, respond to, and recover from terrorist attacks and catastrophic disasters.
On March 1, event organizers guided participants through practice exercises starting with a general cybersecurity alert and progressing to outages, website defacements, and malware affecting multiple jurisdictions. For each exercise, the host led discussions on how jurisdictions would respond on their own, within the region, how to support other agencies under attack, and how to coordinate communications about the threats.
Balderama said the conversations led to increased awareness of best practices and considerations for proactive cybersecurity planning, incident response, information sharing, and communication. Additionally, attendees learned more about partner resources available and how to engage them.
The event was facilitated by Mandiant, a private firm and recognized leader in dynamic cyber defense, threat intelligence and incident response services. Key regional partners of Bay Area UASI include the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Regional Cyber Crimes team, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center (NCRIC) cyber team, and the California Cybersecurity Integration Center’s (Cal-CSIC). Those organizations played vital roles in the March 1 event in San Rafael.
“The County of Marin was proud to be the first agency to host this event, which we hope will be annual,” Balderama said.
The Marin County Board of Supervisors has mentioned emergency preparedness as one of the County’s top ongoing priorities, aligning with responses from the County’s occasional community surveys. The County’s Information Services and Technology (IST) Department, which has garnered several awards in recent years for its security protocols, has orchestrated collaboration and transparency of cybersecurity issues affecting government agencies throughout Marin. Balderama and IST specialists are founders of the Marin Security and Privacy Council (MSPC), which includes representatives from local towns, cities, and community partners.
Marin IST encourages all residents to sign up for the County’s monthly e-newsletter, called Marin CyberSafe News.
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