Cyberattacks on local governments have become routine headlines, and the pattern is clear: smaller municipalities with limited resources are frequent targets. Local government technology environments often include outdated systems, understaffed IT teams, and a wide attack surface—a combination that threat actors actively exploit. The good news is that basic, well-executed cybersecurity measures prevent the vast majority of successful attacks. Here’s where to start.
Know What You’re Protecting
You can’t secure what you don’t know exists. Start with a current inventory of every device, application, and system in your environment—workstations, servers, mobile devices, cloud services, and third-party platforms that access your network.
Many municipalities discover assets they’d forgotten about when they do this exercise for the first time: legacy systems still running on old hardware, cloud tools adopted by a department without IT approval, or vendor accounts that were never fully closed. Visibility is the foundation every other security measure depends on.
Enable Multi-Factor Authentication
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is one of the highest-value, lowest-cost controls available. It requires users to verify their identity through a second method—an app, a text, or a hardware token—in addition to their password.
Stolen or compromised credentials are behind a large share of successful breaches. MFA stops most of those attacks cold. Prioritize enabling it on email, remote access tools, financial systems, and any administrative accounts first. Then expand from there.
Patch Systems on a Defined Schedule
Unpatched software is an open door. Attackers routinely scan for known vulnerabilities in operating systems and applications, and many successful attacks exploit weaknesses that patches have been available to fix for months.
Establish a documented patching cycle—weekly for critical updates, monthly for routine maintenance. Track what’s been patched and when. Systems that can’t be updated on a modern cycle need a compensating control or a clear plan for replacement. “We’ll get to it eventually” is how avoidable incidents happen.
Train Staff Consistently
Most security incidents involve a human being making a preventable mistake—clicking a phishing link, using a weak password, or sharing credentials. Technical controls help, but they don’t replace well-trained staff.
Run phishing simulations to identify who needs additional guidance without blame. Provide brief, regular training that covers current threats—not a long annual video employees click through. When staff understand what attacks actually look like, they become part of your defense rather than the weakest point in it.
Protect and Test Your Backups
Ransomware attacks are particularly devastating for local governments when backups don’t exist or aren’t usable. Every critical system should be backed up regularly, with copies stored offline or in a separate environment that can’t be reached by an attacker who compromises your main network.
Testing matters as much as the backup itself. Verify that your backups can actually be restored—and how long that restoration takes. Find out before an incident, not during one.
Build a Basic Incident Response Plan
When something goes wrong, decisions made in the first hour matter enormously. A basic incident response plan defines who gets called, what gets isolated, how decisions are escalated, and who communicates with the public or state authorities.
It doesn’t have to be long. It has to be current, accessible, and practiced. Run a tabletop exercise once a year so the right people know their roles before a real event creates the pressure.
Manage Vendor and Third-Party Risk
Third-party vendors with access to your systems or citizen data represent risk that extends well beyond your own environment. Review vendor access levels regularly, confirm that sensitive access is revoked when relationships end, and ask vendors about their own security practices.
Vendor-related breaches are increasingly common in the public sector. Treating vendor oversight as an ongoing process—not a contract checkbox—reduces that exposure meaningfully.
Governance Keeps It From Slipping
Good intentions without structure fade quickly. Assign clear ownership for each security function, establish a regular review cycle, and make sure leadership receives periodic updates on risk posture and open items.
Cybersecurity isn’t a project with a finish line. It’s an ongoing commitment—and local governments that build it into regular operations are far better positioned than those that treat it as something to address after an incident.
