For those of you that attended last year’s conference, you might remember I stepped up on my off-script soap box during the Awards Luncheon and talked about the Excellence Awards. This is your chance to stand up and brag about a really cool and successful project that you did over the last year. In a couple of months, we will open nominations for the Excellence Awards to be presented at the next conference. If you have something in the works, don’t forget about it when it comes time for nominations. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking it’s too small, too insignificant or not important enough. We would love to parade you and your team on the stage and brag about your awesome work!

On a slightly related note, I’d like to take this opportunity to give a virtual round of applause to our TAGITM Board members, past and present. Our organization has made great strides over the last few years in our growth, our relationships with other organizations and the cooperation we give and receive on a legislative level through other state agencies. While this is only the beginning, one of the biggest rewards we have seen is a huge increase in information sharing that ultimately benefits our membership. All of these benefits and value-adds come directly from the hard work that our group of volunteers does throughout the year. So, to the committee members, committee chairs and other Board members, thank you!

Thanksgiving is this week. I hope you all have a great one and remember to stop for time and remember what you’re thankful for. 

 - Scott

Representatives of the TAGITM Cybersecurity Committee had a series of meetings Thursday, October 31 with State Cybersecurity Incident Response (IR) working group in Austin, as well as Department of Information Resource (DIR) leadership and a representative from DHS. Click below to learn more about the topics that were discussed.

By Evan Schuman, ComputerWorld

News reports in mid-November - subsequently confirmed by a Facebook executive's tweet - that the Facebook iOS app was videotaping users without notice should serve as a critical heads up to enterprise IT and security execs that mobile devices are every bit as risky as they feared. And a very different bug, planted by cyberthieves, presents even more frightening camera-spying issues with Android.

By Cynthia Brumfield, IT News

Speakers at this year’s CyberwarCon conference dissected a new era of cyber warfare, as nation-state actors turn to a host of new advanced persistent threat (APT) strategies, tools and tactics to attack adversaries and spy on domestic dissidents and rivals. The highest profile example of this new era of nation-state digital warfare is a Russian military intelligence group called Sandworm, a mysterious hacking initiative about which little has been known until recently. The group has nevertheless launched some of the most destructive cyberattacks in history.

By Lucian Constantin, IT World

An increasing number of phishing websites use web analytics services and have unique tracking IDs in their code, security researchers have found. Whether intentional or accidental, the use of such IDs can help defenders discover phishing pages that are used across large attack campaigns.

By Aimee Chanthadavong, ZDNet

The Australian Securities Exchange's (ASX) decision to build a new post-trade solution using blockchain technology may have many intrigued, but according to ASX deputy CEO Peter Hiom, in a few years' time all the chatter about blockchain will be business as usual. Speaking on a panel to media this week at vForum in Sydney, Hiom believes that blockchain is relevant to any industry where data sharing across multiple parties is concerned.