Crownsville, MD: The Maryland Department of Information Technology released the “Cybersecurity and Privacy Policy Suite,” a comprehensive collection of standards that will make the State of Maryland more secure. The standards apply to all agencies in the executive branch.
“Cybersecurity threats are only getting more and more advanced. Our State needed a simple, unified approach to ensure our systems, services, and data are fully protected in this modern environment," says Katie Savage, Secretary of the Maryland Department of Information Technology. “The new Cybersecurity and Privacy Policy Suite will help reduce state-wide risk, simplify compliance, and protect our digital infrastructure from evolving cybersecurity threats.”
Over the next 18 months, agencies across the state will implement modern controls based on zero trust principles, a modern cybersecurity approach that ensures all state IT systems “never trust and always verify” user actions. This approach makes it exponentially harder for bad actors to move from one IT system to another, which will ensure the state is less vulnerable to cybersecurity incidents.
The Department of Information Technology’s Office of Security Management created the policy suite in close collaboration with other state agencies, local governments, and members of the Maryland Cybersecurity Coordinating Council. 1,208 comments and suggestions were given during the policy writing process, ensuring the policy is practical and tailored to the State of Maryland.
Maryland governments outside the executive branch—including local governments as well as legislative and judicial branch agencies—are not required to follow the policy but are strongly encouraged to use it to inform their own efforts to secure their systems.
“Cybersecurity is a team sport, and we are all Team Maryland,” says James Saunders, the State of Maryland’s Chief Information Security Officer. “I am incredibly proud of my team for accomplishing this feat and grateful to everyone across the whole state who contributed to the development of this suite.”
Contact: Nathan Miller
[email protected]
443-346-3972