Following the August cybersecurity event that recently affected more than 20 Texas agencies, the TAGITM Board of Directors formed a cybersecurity committee to highlight the communication breakdown that occurred with the appropriate agencies and influence change to the communication process before the inevitable next event occurs.

The 86th Legislature passed House Bill (HB) 3834, requiring state and local government employees to annually complete a certified cybersecurity training. Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR), in consultation with the Texas Cybersecurity Council, is required to certify the cybersecurity training programs required by this legislation. 

By Michael Cooney, IT World

A statement released on Sept. 23 at the United Nations indicated that 27 countries have signed a cybersecurity pledge to encourage responsible behavior in the cyberworld. The countries agreed to work together by taking necessary measures against the evils in the cyber world.

By Danny Palmer, ZDnet

Companies which fall victim to cyber attacks and data breaches often come in for criticism, but one the best things an organisation can do to ensure it remains protected against the impacts of a hacking incident is to take advantage of the expertise of cybersecurity professionals who've faced a major attack. A new research paper by Symantec and Goldsmiths, University of London surveyed over 3,000 CISOs and found that just over half believe that learning from failure is an important part of the process for improving corporate cybersecurity measures.

By Woody Leonhard, Computerworld

Microsoft set the patching world on its ear on Sept. 23 when it released an "out of band" patch to fix a vulnerability known as CVE-2019-1367. Then, on Sept. 24, the company dumped its usual big bunch of "optional, non-security" Win10 patches and "Monthly Rollup Previews" which - we finally figured out - include the fix for CVE-2019-1367.

By Peter Sayer, IT World

Last year, Oracle introduced its Autonomous Database, a self-provisioning, self-configuring database engine. This year, it’s looking at the next layer down in the stack: "The new version of Oracle Linux is autonomous," Oracle Chairman and CTO Larry Ellison said. In addition to Autonomous Linux for Cloud, here are 10 other key Oracle announcements from OpenWorld 2019.

TAGITM members: quick!

We have ONE question for you - are you thankful for TAGITM? Please click this link to respond.