Building Cyber Resilience Across 26 Local Governments: What We Learned and What Comes Next
- Cybersecurity Consultant Brent Gallo
- Oct 24
- 3 min read
When small city and county governments get hit, the impact is personal: 911 dispatch delays, utility billing outages, public-records backlogs. That’s why we’re excited to share highlights from our latest white paper, which chronicles a district-wide program in Kentucky where Hire A Cyber Pro helped 26 municipalities establish a defensible cybersecurity baseline.
The mission
Our team mobilized a multi-entity effort to give local leaders clarity on risk, readiness, and next steps. Using a mix of NIST 800-30 risk methods, CIS Benchmarks/NIST CSF baselining, CISA CSET guidance, enterprise-grade vulnerability scanning, and external testing, we delivered first-time assessments, hands-on exercises, and action plans across the district.
What we delivered
· 26 actionable cybersecurity assessments
· 25 new incident response (IR) plans, tailored and approved
· 26 first-time IR tabletop exercises with municipal-specific scenarios
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The risk picture
Aggregate risk distribution landed at 22 low-risk, 3 moderate-risk, and 1 high-risk entities. That reflected quick wins around MFA, EDR, patch cadence, email authentication (SPF/DKIM/DMARC), centralized logging, MDM, and third-party risk, areas that consistently shrink attack surface in municipal environments.
How the program worked
· Mobilize & Orient — group onboarding for scope, expectations, secure evidence exchange.
· Discovery — leadership/IT/MSP interviews; OSINT and exposure sweeps; deploy sensors; internal scans; external tests.
· Assessment & Planning — CSET-guided control reviews; NIST 800-30 risk analysis; POA&Ms; policy gap mapping to CIS/NIST CSF.
· Exercise & Improve — custom ransomware tabletop exercises; new IR plans completed and approved.
· Governance & Close — read-outs, roll-ups, 90-day action plans, and a cadence for quarterly checks.
Field notes from the front lines
· Identity first: uneven MFA and privileged account hygiene remain the most common—and fixable—weaknesses.
· Patch reality, not policy: deferred reboots and legacy systems quietly extend the window for exploitation.
· Practice communications: tabletops that include public messaging, decision rights, insurer notifications, and mutual-aid coordination pay off when minutes count.
What’s next: a pragmatic quarterly plan
· Q1: MFA to 100% of staff/admin paths; privileged access reviews; email authentication enforcement.
· Q2: EDR to 100% of managed endpoints; log centralization with alerting playbooks; backup immutability tests.
· Q3: Patch SLOs by severity (e.g., Critical ≤7 days); CIS configuration minimums; third‑party risk intake.
· Q4: District-wide incident command tabletop, targeted purple-team drills, annual external testing refresh.
Why partner with Hire A Cyber Pro
We’re a veteran-led team that blends vCISO leadership, risk assessments, penetration testing, managed vulnerability scanning, and program build-outs—tuned for public sector realities. Our approach: set shared minimums, move quickly on high-value controls, and leave behind the governance and evidence you’ll need for grants, insurers, and audits.
Get the White Paper — and Let’s Strengthen Your Security Program
Ready to move from talking about cyber risk to reducing it? Download the white paper to see the playbook we use to complete assessments efficiently, raise organization‑wide awareness, and improve security posture—without derailing day‑to‑day operations.
How we can help your organization:
· Complete a right-sized assessment (NIST 800-171/CMMC, CIS, GLBA, HIPAA, or NIST CSF baselines).
· Map business workflows and data flows—paper and digital—so you know where sensitive data is created, stored, and shared.
· Run engaging awareness sessions and tabletop exercises for execs, IT, and business units to align responsibilities and decision rights.
· Build a prioritized roadmap with quick wins (0–90 days), near-term (3–9 months), and longer-term (9–18 months) actions.
· Stand up continuous compliance with simple KPIs (patch latency, MFA coverage, backup tests, incident drills) and an evidence library auditors love.
Let’s talk about completing assessments for your organization, bringing awareness to cybersecurity risks, and improving your cybersecurity posture together.
Hire A Cyber Pro — contact@hireacyberpro.com • 865-500-3885 • hireacyberpro.com
Get the white paper.
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