Public safety professionals want technology upgrades and adoption of federal standards for first responder IT security, reporting and efficiency, according to Mark43.
First responders face growing concerns amidst cybersecurity surge.
The ever-increasing number, severity and cost of cyberattacks is reflected in the concerns and experiences of first responders.
91% of first responders have experienced cybersecurity-related issues in the past year like phishing, scam calls and malware attacks.
Scam calls and malware/viruses are now the leading cybersecurity concern for first responders, overtaking phishing from last year's survey.
92% of first responders also are somewhat or very concerned about how their agencies would handle a tactical response to cyberattacks or physical attacks at large-scale events like sports games, concerts and conventions.
The vast majority of first responders are also very concerned about the impact of natural disasters and power grid failures on their agencies, with 84% reporting that such events can overwhelm public safety agencies and impact the service they deliver to their community.
67% of first responders have experienced dispatch outages, and 88% have experienced other IT malfunctions.
84% of first responders using computer-aided dispatch systems have experienced a CAD outage that impacted response times, including over a 35% who experience CAD outages six to 10 times per year.
75% of first responders reported that inefficient IT systems cause outages, delays and other malfunctions.
First responders also lay out solutions for the cybersecurity, disaster recovery and dispatch outage concerns and problems they report, including their top three: more accurate reporting, increased efficiency and increased data security, all of which are easily attainable with modern cloud-native systems.
93% believe the general public would feel better if their local public safety agencies were required to adhere to federal cybersecurity standards, like FedRAMP, which mandates a premier and standardized approach to security and risk assessment for cloud technologies.
Public safety agencies scale up data collection amid tech boom.
Driven by new technology and increases in federal, state, and local compliance requirements, public safety agencies have been collecting more data of varying types in recent years.
In 2024 leading agencies will develop ways to break down information silos and coordinate their systems and data to inform decision-making and effective crime fighting.
In recent years, there has been an increase in the use of mobile applications by public safety agencies.
Technology advances have made it easier to take first responders' workflows off laptops and mobile data terminals and onto their mobile devices.
As a result, the ability of first responders to use handheld devices is becoming less of an added benefit for agencies and rather a necessity.
The current generation of incoming first responders are digital natives who grew up with technology and are accustomed to using their mobile devices as their primary way of interacting with the world.
Public safety agencies are entering a time when the new generation of members coming on to the job interact with technology in a fundamentally different way than those who came before them.
This Cyber News was published on www.helpnetsecurity.com. Publication date: Fri, 29 Dec 2023 04:43:04 +0000