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Governor McAuliffe Encourages Buckling Down on Cyber Security

In light of the recent data breach at Anthem and what some believe will be an inevitable cyberattack by sophisticated terrorists, Governor McAuliffe is imploring tech-savvy business leaders and IT professionals to get aggressive.  He’s asking them to take additional steps to identify, assess, and defeat threats-as well as to help attract cybersecurity entities to the Commonwealth.

McAuliffe says federal officials have identified cyberattacks as the nation’s top security threat. He points out that although attackers exploited vulnerabilities in Anthem's system, Virginia’s own protective arm detected 36 million attacks on the state’s Executive branch alone last year.

"We blocked more than four-hundred and 55-million spam emails, we detected and blocked more than 57-thousand-700 viruses."

He says just imagine the other attacks on the private sector and other entities. He adds that this is why he takes cybersecurity very seriously-and is pushing to bolster the industry and develop a workforce pipeline for cybersecurity. The big prize, he says, would be landing a proposed federal cybersecurity campus. He says the federal government plans to invest billions to protect the nation's data, and some of that should be spent here.

Tommie McNeil is a State Capitol reporter who has been covering Virginia and Virginia politics for more than a decade. He originally hails from Maryland, and also doubles as the evening anchor for 1140 WRVA in Richmond.
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