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LA To Partner With Feds To Protect Against Cyber Attack

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — The city of Los Angeles took its first step Wednesday in a partnership with federal law enforcement to prevent cyber attacks on critical city departments.

KNX 1070's Pete Demetriou reports Mayor Eric Garcetti signed an executive directive to establish LA's first Cyber Intrusion Command Center.

LA To Partner With Feds To Protect Against Cyber Attack

The order signed by Garcetti  in downtown L.A. directs the city's Information Technology Agency to quickly identify and investigate cyber threats and intrusions against city assets and improve dissemination of cyber security alerts and information.

Suggested measures for the city to take include ensuring automatic prompts for employees to change and update passwords every 90 days, providing annual training to city employees on cyber security, and developing mechanisms to determine whether dormant email accounts have been deactivated.

The Command Center will be led by Garcetti's office and will include assistance from the FBI and Secret Service.

"Today, our traffic lights, our routing system for trash pickup, and so much more are electronic," Garcetti said. "Cyber security means protecting the basic services at the core of city government, and it means protecting our critical infrastructure like our port and airport, which we know are top targets."

The directive also calls for Garcetti's office to organize a working group of key city departments to propose a more detailed organizational structure for the Cyber Intrusion Command Center.

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