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Senate Panel OKs CDT Bid for $4.7M for Cybersecurity

The Brown administration’s efforts to beef up state IT security got an endorsement Thursday from a Senate budget panel, which approved $4.7 million for the California Department of Technology, but lawmakers scrutinized another request to help counties replace vulnerable aging voter equipment.

The Brown administration’s efforts to beef up state IT security got an endorsement Thursday from a Senate budget panel, but lawmakers scrutinized another request to help counties replace vulnerable aging voter equipment.

Senate Subcommittee 4 on State Administration and General Government approved $4.7 million to bolster the California Department of Technology's Security Solutions Unit, which includes five new system software specialists to support the recently opened Security Operations Center.

“The sheer volume and adaptability of cybersecurity threats continue to pose a constant risk to the security of the state’s information assets,” said Chris Cruz, deputy state CIO and chief deputy director of the California Department of Technology (CDT).

To combat cyberthreats, Cruz told lawmakers the budget money would be spent to buy contemporary IT security equipment that enhances the department’s scanning infrastructure, to upgrade security analytics tools and to improve departments’ abilities to deter network intrusions.

The administration is seeking an initial $4.7 million from the Technology Services Revolving Fund and estimates future annual requests of $1.5 million, according to the subcommittee’s analysis.

“Once mobilized, the integral components will reinforce the department’s ability to combat the growing number of IT cybersecurity threats on a statewide basis,” Cruz said.

The CDT launched its 24/7 Security Operations Center last year, assigning IT experts to a center location to constantly monitor the Internet traffic of about 100 state agencies, departments and other state entities. It created the center with existing budget funds, redirected nine state workers and hired five contractors. The new budget money is slated to replace those contractors, whose contracts are expiring, with five state employees.

The item was approved without any opposition or debate.

But lawmakers had a number of questions about Gov. Jerry Brown’s $134.4 million budget request to help counties replace aging voter systems, which Secretary of State Alex Padilla described as “one of the biggest threats” in election security.

Among the concerns raised was whether the state should invest in voting machines for precinct polling places even though California is shifting to a model of “vote centers,” where voters in a county can cast their ballots on Election Day at any vote center rather than their neighborhood polling place.

And Sen. Steve Glazer, D-Orinda, suggested that Californians might not even go to a vote center in 10 years but rather vote online with a secure identification.

“This is an amount of money that is going to go into equipment that could have a useful life of 20 or 30 years,” Glazer said of the voting systems that would be purchased by the counties. “And yet the likelihood that we’ll be using it in 20 to 30 years from now, to me at least, seems less likely.”

For his part, Padilla voiced skepticism that the state would embrace online voting so long as breaches continue in both the government and private sector — listing hacks of Target, Home Depot, the Democratic National Committee, the Internal Revenue Service and Sony Studios, among others.

“I don’t think we will have either the security nor the confidence of true Internet-based or online voting,” Padilla said. “So, until that time comes, we do everything we can to ensure the security and the integrity and access to the process.”

He described voting machines now being used across California as being at or near life expectancy, with some county election officials going to eBay to find replacement parts when machines break down. In some cases, he said, vendors no longer provide tech support to old equipment and it can’t be patched or updated with the latest security software.

Lawmakers declined to vote on the voting equipment money, pledging to take it up within the next few weeks and possibly adding language that would give counties incentives to move toward vote centers rather than the traditional neighborhood precinct polling stations.