The Municipal Local Cybersecurity Grant Program is doling out nearly $7 million to cities and towns, regional school districts and other local governments. The grants range from $10,000 to up to $100,000 in funding for more than 100 communities, the Healey-Driscoll administration said.
Gov. Maura Healey said the grant money will give local governments “access to the resources, tools, and guidance necessary to protect against increasingly frequent and sophisticated cybersecurity threats.”
“Through these programs, our administration has undertaken a collaborative approach to equip state agencies and local communities with funding to help prevent, prepare for and recover from attacks on our digital infrastructure,” she said in a statement.
The Essex County Sheriff’s Office is slated to get a $100,000 cybersecurity grant, while Newburyport will get $51,910; Gloucester $54,931; Methuen $100,000 and Beverly $54,100, the Healey administration said.
The Essex North Shore Agricultural & Technical School, which serves more than a dozen North Shore communities, is slated to receive a $100,000 grant through the program, while Andover schools will get $92,000 and Ipswich schools will get $77,278, according to the Healey administration.
The federal dollars will be provided through the State and Local Cybersecurity Grant program, which is overseen by the federal Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Massachusetts cities and towns are under constant threat from hackers probing for weaknesses in computer systems, intent on stealing money and personal information, and cybersecurity experts say the attacks are getting worse.
Attacks range from malware, ransomware and email phishing scams, to old-fashioned cons using the internet to trick people.
Many perpetrators operate from overseas, with ties to rogue nations and criminal gangs, making it hard to catch them. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center logged 800,944 suspected internet crimes last year. Reported losses exceeded $10.2 billion.
Topping the list of crimes were “phishing” scams, nonpayment/non-delivery scams and internet-based extortion, the agency said.
There were 7,805 victims of cybercrimes in Massachusetts last year, with losses topping $226 million. Many of those victims were elderly, the FBI said.
Cities and towns have been facing an uptick in ransomware, which involves hackers encrypting a local government or school’s networks until a ransom is paid.
A 2023 report by the firm Sophos found that nearly seven in 10 IT leaders at local and state governments said they have faced ransomware attacks in the last year.
Most of those attacks started either through unpatched systems or stolen passwords, according to the report.
“Cyber threats are evolving, and Massachusetts is advancing our strategies and defenses to meet these threats head on,” said Terrence Reidy, secretary of the state Executive Office of Public Safety and Security. “These grant programs allow us the opportunity to invest in the tools necessary to safeguard our digital infrastructure and enhance the resiliency of our communities.”
© 2024 the Gloucester Daily Times (Gloucester, Mass.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.