Cities Face Growing Cyber Threats. Here’s What They’re Doing

When Gary Brantley stepped into the role of Atlanta’s chief information officer in October 2018, he inherited a system still reeling from a crippling cyberattack that forced employees to revert to pen and paper. It didn’t take him long to see just how inviting the city’s operations were to hackers.

“We had close to 400 applications, several that were redundant, meaning they did all the same thing across multiple agencies,” Brantley said. For instance, there were five email programs, four customer resource managers and several permit application systems — each one a potential window of opportunity for cybercriminals. “What you end up ...