This Week in GovTech

Welcome back to another episode of In Case You Missed It This Week in GovTech. Another action-packed week. It was great to actually get a chance to see Joe in person for the first time in almost 2 years at our Management Retreat and Envision event in Phoenix. Great to see so many of our partners across the country there as well. And as Joe mentioned from his time at NACIO, this return to live is here. People are hungry for it and it's just beginning. So, so excited about the week that was. It was also a crazy week for the market. Lots of activity to kind of break down for you today. As we go through This Week in GovTech, we'll start first with one article that kind of caught my attention, and that's the rise of a new type of cyber threat that we're hearing about. You know, we've gone from a variety of social engineering to ransomware to now we've got killware that's starting to enter the conversation. And, you know, the interesting thing about killware is this is a cyber attack that's designed to not just get, you know, cryptocurrency or payments It's not a financial trigger, but it's really, you know, looking at using technology to disrupt, to cause harm, whether it's trying to attack a water supply system or, you know, trying to do something to bring down parts of the grid. But it is an important thing to kind of keep in mind as we think about cybersecurity and the evolution of cybersecurity in state and local government. Not everything is financially motivated, and some things are now kind of at a more, you know, a terroristic kind of viewpoint. And so, you know, Jed, Joe, You know, what do you make of the rise of a new buzz phrase, but also this new threat vector that now state and local government agencies have to pay attention to, even if they're small?

I think when you look at it, you— the infrastructure bill, right? You just talked about it, whether it's a utility, some of that critical infrastructure. This is absolutely something that states and localities are gonna have to think with this evolving cyber landscape and the idea that the threat isn't just gonna be financial, like you said, the opportunity to actually cause human harm, It's going to be something they're going to have to factor into their investment plans as we look at the long-term plans for infrastructure modernization.

Yeah, and this issue with utilities is definitely something that's been on my radar over the last several months. You know, there's been some stories out about, you know, water utilities being hacked, and, you know, that can cause, you know, poison in the water supply, for example. So this is definitely something that has to be taken seriously. And yeah, it's quite fortunate that the infrastructure bill passed when it did, because hopefully some of that money can be used to protect against this threat of killware. And it also speaks to just, you know, just where we are right now in the 21st century. Just like you said, Dustin, with the terrorism, you know, the Basically, the idea that, you know, you're not looking for any monetary gain. You're just, you're just out to destroy. So pretty fascinating times.

Absolutely. All right. So speaking on the cybersecurity front, Joe, you had an article that talked on cyber insurance. So break down why this one caught your attention.

Yeah, ransomware wasn't enough. Now you've given me killware to think about as well. But you mentioned our Envision event, and when you kicked off, and at that event we had a lot of discussion around cybersecurity, obviously from the CIOs that were in attendance. But the topic of cyber insurance came up, and this article hits on it here too. It's getting harder and harder for governments to get cyber insurance, and if they do get it, they've seen their premiums go up. This article references towards the bottom a federal report where they did a study saying by 2020, I think most governments saw a 10% to even a 30% increase in their cyber premiums. So where you're seeing those costs go up or vendors leave this market, it's something that's becoming more and more of a challenge around this. So it's interesting to me in terms of the evolution of how quickly we started talking about cyber insurance, and now we're seeing maybe, hey, this might be a market that may become out of reach for government. So it caught my attention and it aligns to where I'm seeing the discussion and priorities amongst the C-level. Yeah, as you said, at Envision, it definitely was a hot topic issue.

And I mean, I think as we see killware and the rise of, you know, more sophisticated AI social engineering, agencies are going to need to rethink their risk mitigation tactics as it relates to cyber. And I mean, you know, the notion of just cybersecurity itself is automatically setting up certain positions for failure because, you know, what is security and the ability to secure? You know, we have to start to think about, risk mitigation and, and how we do things in a digital way. Plus, you know, now you've got the physical threat vector as well that's kind of entered the picture. So now more than ever is the time to kind of reimagine and really rethink our strategies on how we do cyber.

Yeah, I completely agree with you, Dustin. And I think one reason why we have to rethink the strategy is that we have to take into account that, you know, all local areas have water utilities of some sort, and a lot of these local areas are not big. You know, they may not have a great budget to work with. And so, you know, would they be able to, one, afford the cybersecurity upgrades, and then two, even afford the cyber insurance, you know, if the insurance rates are going up? Another thing I find fascinating about this too is, you know, the connection to ransomware, because, you know, some experts say that you should never pay the ransom. But, you know, if you're getting cyber insurance, you would think that part of the idea there is that the cyber insurance would pay the ransom. So that's an interesting kind of conflict there to think about.

Fortunately, we're gonna be covering a lot of cybersecurity over the next few months with the passage of the infrastructure bill and the over, whatever it is, $1 billion in recurring funding to state and local governments over the next 4 years. So there's gonna be resources both from the federal government in terms of technical assets and expertise, but also funding coming to states and localities that will hopefully work to mitigate some of these challenges.

Yeah, and I think one last thing to add on to Jed's point, we also have to think about how we sustain that, right? Not just even the upfront, outlay of capital towards putting in place a robust cybersecurity posture. But ultimately, if you're a small utility in a rural area, you know, who's going to be responsible for it when the funding runs out? You know, how do you reskill employees that may not have the expertise or be plugged into all the new threat vectors? So it's going to take a different approach from a collaboration standpoint too, to really tackle this one together. And speaking of the infrastructure bill, I know there's a lot of funding that was allocated for cyber and modernization and kind of the building of physical infrastructure, but broadband was front and center. So Jed, this was your article of the week.

Yeah, and what I find interesting about the broadband investment here is that if you look at the buckets, you know, you have roughly $42 billion for deployment. That's the largest investment ever according to Benton Institute for broadband deployment. And, you know, that's more than, you know, any of the years where, you know, the FCC has doled out Broadband funds, and then also you look at all the money that's going toward digital inclusion. They say that that's also the largest single investment ever from a federal level for that, and so it's great to see that government is now on board, not just with the idea that broadband is something that everyone needs to have in this new world, but also the idea that it's not just about broadband. It's about, you know, computer literacy. It's about having the devices and these sorts of things. The other interesting part about this whole thing with broadband is the shift away from the Federal Communications Commission having the majority of the federal funds. Now it's shifted to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. And so I'm going to be very interested to see how these broadband projects stack up against the ones that were completed under the FCC. Because basically what the people that I've talked to from states, they suggest to me that NTIA and the states have a closer relationship than the states and the FCC. That's just, that's just the impression that I've been getting. So it's going to be interesting to see how that plays out. And, you know, the other thing too is that, okay, even though NTIA is managing the deployment funds, The data that they're using though is gonna be these updated FCC maps, which haven't been updated yet. It's supposed to happen sometime in 2022. So states and local areas interested in this money for deployment, you're probably gonna have to wait until that data is updated before the whole program kicks off.

So a couple interesting things that stood out to me on this, right? You see the equity money that was in there that you outlined, Jeb, You have to— states have to create these equity, digital equity plans. So that's going to be a fascinating deliverable of these funds. But some of the states across the country don't have dedicated broadband offices. So we may see some legwork leading up to the availability of these funds to kind of get the infrastructure in place at the states to take full advantage of these funds. You mentioned NTIA and, you know, the kind of record amount of funding. Well, it was only 10 years ago that, you know, under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, that we saw about $7 billion come out to kind of lay some of this initial, you know, maps and effort. Now, you know, $42 billion for adoption. Maybe we really want to see kind of how much this could move the needle, and can we really, you know, solve the last-mile issues? Can we solve the equity issues? And can we look back at these funds and say, wow, you You know, job well done. Now we've got a, you know, a connected nation.

Yeah, I think another thing too that's gonna be interesting is what we define as broadband in the context of how these funds are outlaid, right? Because back, you know, 10 years ago, as Joe talked about with the ARRA funds, it's kind of like broadband was fiber in the ground, it was conduit that you were lighting up. But now technology's evolved where that's a definite piece of this, but you've got new next-generation wireless technologies like 5G that are entering the picture. You've got low-Earth orbit satellites with like Starlink from SpaceX. It's like, what is the right approach that's contextual to the areas that are out there? And then, you know, ultimately, what is the guidance going to be on funding utilization around some of those new technologies as well? So a lot to kind of unpack and track there. But I think the one thing that we also learned from ARA that's going to be interesting to follow here is we need to not just build the infrastructure, we need to teach people how to leverage the infrastructure. Digital equity is a big part of that, inclusion is a big part of it, but ultimately You know, it's kind of like the one-to-one initiatives that fail. Just outlaying technology isn't going to solve our problems here. We got to go a little bit deeper.

Yeah, one of those is affordability, right? So there's money in there also for broadband affordability, where one of the challenges is in some of these communities it's available, but it's far too expensive for people to take advantage of. So the other benefit that we saw in the American Rescue Plan Act that's continued in this round of funding is some funding around, you know, Providing incentives and to lower the cost of broadband connectivity.

Right, right, Joe. Yeah, you're right, it's extending the emergency broadband benefit and expanding it. Now the stipend is gonna be less, it was $50, now it's gonna be $30, but the idea is that so more people can get into it. Dustin, to your earlier point about how broadband is gonna be defined, I find this very interesting. So, and this article mentions this, The deployment part of it, uh, those projects, they need to be 100 megabits per second down, 20 megabits per second up, which is different than the current FCC definition, which is still at 25 down, 3 up. So that right there is very interesting because again, it, it goes back to my point about how shifting away from the FCC shifting towards something else. There's almost an implication here that that very definition that the FCC has is just not good enough.

I believe that definition's also different than the ARPA definition, which don't hold me to, 'cause I don't have it in front of me, but I thought the fiscal recovery funds were 100 up and 100 down.

Yeah, you might be right about that. I seem to recall seeing, I can't remember the exact figure, but yeah. So maybe this is gonna start a whole new conversation about, well, what really should it be? There are some people who stick to that symmetrical. They say it should be symmetrical every time, given that upload is a much more important part of our society now.

Absolutely. Well, great articles for this week. Now, to kind of end our time together, we're gonna bring in a special guest that's been in our green room. So I wanna welcome Dennis Noonan, who's our managing editor of our TechWire platform. So Dennis, thanks so much for carving out a few minutes of your day to join us for the tail end of our discussion today.

My pleasure. Thanks for having me on, Dustin.

So for those that are in our audience that are new to the Techwire platform, maybe tell us a little bit about Techwire and its focus on the state of California.

Yeah, thank you. Techwire is, uh, the really the only daily significant ongoing coverage of what we consider job-critical information for those in the public and private sectors. We cover the industry, we cover the government side, we cover the relationships and the contracts between them. And with a $14 billion a year state and local market for technology in California, it's one of these, it's a product and it's a venue that you can't ignore at your own peril. It is a, now more than ever, it's, I would consider it a connective thread for the industry because there are so few in-person events now, even though we're kind of easing back into them, this is still a good way, Techwire provides a good way to kind of keep you bound to your colleagues, your competitors, and your prospects.

So thanks, Dennis, for joining us. You mentioned events. As I understand it, we have an event coming up called State of Tech. Can you share a little bit more about that?

Yeah, the event is December 3rd. It's a typical annual Techwire event. This year it's a big one because, as I said, with so few in-person events, it's great to hear from some of the new people. California Department of Technology has some new leadership. They've got a new Chief Deputy Director, Deputy State CIO Russ Nichols, who comes from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Russ will be among the speakers, as will Amy Tong, the State CIO. Amy always addresses the groups. The other guests who will be speaking will be Rita Gass, who is the CIO from the Employment Development Department, which has been much in the news the last couple of years. Rita, for those who have been in the industry a while, comes from the Secretary of State's office, and she's worked in other departments as well, and she has also led Techwire briefings in the past, so Rita will no doubt have a vital message to deliver. Others include Ajay Gupta from the DMV. Ajay is the Chief Digital Transformation Officer. We will have the CIO of the Department of Rehabilitation, John Kirkham, and we'll have Catherine Lanzaro, CIO from the Department of Child Support Services. It'll be interesting to hear the insights from all these folks as the state evolves into What will be the next step, the post-pandemic step, I suppose. I'm excited to hear some of those messages.

Dennis, it's great to have you here. Long time no see. I was going to ask you about the agenda. It seems that you've covered a good bit of it. If there's anything else you'd like to add to that, definitely make sure to mention it. But I also wanted to ask on top of that, is there anything in particular that you're looking forward to the most hearing when you're there?

Yeah, thanks, Jed. Uh, it has been a while. It's good to see all you guys. Um, in addition to the, the pretty full roster, um, we will also be hearing from Joe. Joe Moros will be speaking about some market opportunities, market strategies, actionable insight. Those are always vital messages to hear for those on both sides of the, of the table, the public and the private side. What's ahead for the market? You know, anybody who follows Techwire, we routinely report on the large contract awards, the bids that are going out. We like to follow up on those. And no doubt there are trends that have emerged that we've been reporting on and trends that will continue to emerge as we move down the road. So I think the lookaheads are going to be the most interesting part of the, of the event, hearing the different perspectives from the department, the large department CIOs, as well as from DMV and EDD. which, as I said, have been in the news for a while on their own merits. So I think those are going to be the highlights, is the, the look-ahead messages from those in the position to know.

So who's this event ideal for? I mean, when you think about California as a market, huge market, you know, in state and local government, who's the best kind of person to attend this event?

Well, I would say, you know, one of the trends that I've been seeing in our daily TechWire coverage and my talking with sources and with the industry is that there seems to be more room for smaller companies to come in, the smaller shops, small businesses, some of the veteran-owned businesses and what have you. I would say that there's definitely a niche there. As CDT has sort of changed its model and is going more toward the agile methodology, breaking projects up into smaller parts, there is more opportunity for some of those who may not have been able to sit at the big kids' table before to come in and get a little piece of the state action. So I would say that whether you're with a larger company and you're an established member of the Techwire community, or if it's something that you're considering and you're at a little bit smaller scale and you want to get your foot in the door with the state, I think either of those, those categories would be well served to attend this event.

So where do we go to find more about Techwire and the event?

We have links on the government technology website, govtech.com. We have links on the techwire.net website. On both of those, just go to the events dropdown. The event is free for Techwire members, and members are also allowed to bring guests to this virtual event as well. For more information for registration, all of that information is available on the website and I think there's a chat. We— is there a place we can post that link?

Yeah, we got it on that. We got it on the show notes and we got it on the screen.

So, okay, great.

We get people in the right direction.

Great. Well, I appreciate the opportunity to talk about this. Thanks, guys.

No problem, Dennis. We thank you for taking the time of your day to share with us on the event and TechWire.

All right.

Well, it brings us to the end of this week's episode. We want to thank Dennis for joining us and Jed and Dustin for sharing what was in the week of GovTech. And we also want to take a special note out that it's, uh, Jed's birthday this weekend. So we want to wish Jed a happy birthday, and we'll see you all next week. Take care.