Maryland Cyber Security White Paper: Defining the Role of State Government to Secure Maryland’s Cyber Infrastructure

Issued November 1, 2006 by the State of Maryland under Governor Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr., this white paper defines the role of state government in securing Maryland’s cyber infrastructure as a component of the state’s broader homeland-security strategy. It frames critical-infrastructure resilience around four objectives: prevention planning, impact-of-loss analysis, cycle time to recovery, and understanding interdependencies.

Recognizing that Maryland’s infrastructure is owned by a diverse set of public and private stakeholders, the paper proposes six objectives to coordinate cyber security statewide: increase awareness of the cyber threat; facilitate a network to leverage cyber capabilities; organize an incident management and recovery framework; increase the supply of cyber-security expertise; provide continued support to statewide law-enforcement efforts; and secure state government’s own cyber enterprise.

It positions the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security to provide sponsorship and leadership to key stakeholders, leveraging tools such as the Regional Information Sharing Systems Automated Trusted Information Exchange (RISS-ATIX) and partnerships with the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC).