ITS Tech Talk - Aug. 30, 2024

This summer has been busy at ITS, including onboarding and hiring 43 new employees as part of Phase 4 Modernization in June. It is a tremendous milestone that would not have been possible without agency teamwork, both internally, but also with our partners at consolidated agencies that included Division of Lands, Liquor, Military, Department of Lands, State Historical Society and the new State Public Defender’s office. Sitting with new staff during orientation onboarding was exciting and the energy was evident. We have a good team and the momentum is here to build upon our successes.

Recently, I traveled with Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) Jerred Edgar and representatives from the Idaho Military Division and the Idaho National Guard to North Carolina. The purpose of that visit was to observe a joint task force exercise, review their Cyber Fusion capabilities and share the work that Chief Edgar leads related to the Innovative Readiness Training. We are preparing to play a role in Idaho’s Cyber Fusion effort in conjunction with Office of Emergency Management to support the ‘whole of state’ like cities, counties and other municipalities, as our cyber threats continue to grow. Seeing a state that is ahead in some areas was educational for Idaho.

We are pleased to start incorporating videos into our communications materials internally and externally.

The Communications team has developed an ITS video series theme, and we are excited to start incorporating video into communications materials.

Phase 4 of IT Modernization brought in many new and existing challenges for our teams to tackle, and to demonstrate our true capabilities to deliver innovative solutions for our customers.

One example is with the Idaho State Liquor Division (ISLD). Their agency vision states: The vision of the Idaho State Liquor Division is to be the most respected and highest performing purveyor of distilled spirits in the U.S.A. That sets a high bar for the agency, and for ITS to ensure that technical capability exists, and is maintained to maximize throughput, reliability, and capability of the distribution network.

Project highlights and benefits:

• Several hundred hours of planning, design, procurement, and configuration.
• Hardware investment just over $200,000.
• Initial savings estimated to save ISLD $120,000/year in circuit costs as a result of replacing old network technology with modern connectivity-capable devices. This is a two-year return on investment.
• This initiative is a multi-team effort:
  • Firewall: Jon Spence and Nathen Snodgrass – Firewall, and Cradlepoint hardware configuration, testing and support
  • Network: Ed Teets, Anthony Banta – Network configuration, testing and support
  • Deployment: Ed Teets, Jonathan Orchard, and Leandro Diaz, along with additional support from the Onsite team – Deploy, install, test and commission the solution statewide

• The solution will deliver a common system interface allowing ITS teams to provide statewide support remotely.
• The new platform is designed to be easily moved from one physical location to another without requiring new circuit installations cellular or satellite technology. This allows stores to move with short notice, and with much less effort and resources. Cost-savings from this feature alone will exceed hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years.
• When a new store is brought online, this new connectivity allows for minimal effort and short lead-time to implement, ensuring new stores are up and operational as quickly as possible.
• The solution significantly increases security by providing a highly secure, end-to-end network connection, and traffic inspection capability.

Multifactor Authentication (MFA) has been found to stop 99% of all cyber attacks related to credential-based attacks where credentials were captured, purchased, or stolen. Properly implemented, this makes it less likely for a bad actor to use a person’s identity to carry out a cyber attack.

Multifactor Authentication | Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA

Resilience is defined by Merriam and Webster as “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.” 

Resilience is a core principle of cybersecurity. The National Institute of Standards and Technology defines cyber resilience as “the ability to anticipate, withstand, recover from, and adapt to adverse conditions, stresses, attacks, or compromises on systems that use or are enabled by cyber resources.”

Anticipating misfortune. Noticing a problem and acting before it gets bigger. In cybersecurity, this is why we encourage people to keep their systems current and patched. On average, it takes five to 15 minutes to patch a Windows computer, but occasionally it takes an hour or so. On average, it takes one to two hours to patch an application server, but occasionally it takes 8 to 10 hours. On average recovering from a cyber attack takes approximately 22 days, or sometimes a few months.  

Withstanding misfortune. Even with patching, we can’t prevent all the bad things that can happen in cybersecurity. In 2023, there was an estimated $12.5 billion of loss due to cybercrime. Recently, cybersecurity company CrowdStrike put in an automated patch worldwide that had not been tested properly in live environments. According to research done by Parametrix, a total loss of $5.4 billion was caused by the CrowdStrike outage. Research suggested companies that were less affected had multiple methods of dealing with the risks. Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. In cyber security we call this defense in depth.

To be more cyber resilient, patch your electronic devices and use multiple methods of security.

The August Cybersecurity Shout Out of the Month is dedicated to all the people who are working on transferring KnowBe4 cybersecurity training and phishing from the Division of Human Resources (DHR) to ITS.

The transition hasn’t been easy. Technology has changed substantially over the years creating technical debt and the processes at all of the agencies who use KnowBe4 have matured.

Our shout out is for everybody involved is taking time to make sure we get things right and improve the experience. A special shout out goes to the HR and Communications teams who have hung in with the changes, even when things got confusing.

In early July, ITS leadership and managers ventured north to meet and greet new and existing ITS staff as well as visiting ITS-supported agencies.

The goal was to discuss how onboarding went and what could be improved moving forward. Conversation also touched on a future location where employees would be under one roof.

IDL - Idaho Department of Lands (Northern Staff Office/Fire Cache and Mica Supervisory Area Office)

• Staff gave a tour of the Interagency Fire Cache that houses more than 130 employees and provides supplies and equipment to support wildland incidents in Idaho and other western states.

ITD - Idaho Transportation Department (Coeur d’Alene)

• We met with ITD District 1 to discuss how we can further support IT needs in sheds and other remote locations. ITD gave us a tour of the server room and other infrastructure equipment.

IDOL - Idaho Department of Labor (Post Falls)

• The Post Falls location was impacted by several office closures and is now only half-staffed. From Labor’s perspective, understanding normal onboarding speed bumps was important. There were also questions about existing lobby kiosk machines and how ITS could provide solutions to resolving issues with them.

Tax - Idaho Tax Commission (Coeur d’Alene)

• Tax has been in the same facility for more than 25 years. Employees seemed pleased with support they have received, aside from some laptop docking station firmware issues that ITS is working to resolve.

Vets - Idaho Division of Veterans Services (Post Falls)

• The Post Falls location is a newly constructed 64-bed skilled nursing facility that has a centralized community center with multiple amenities. The facility also includes a common food preparation area, laundry, maintenance supply areas, a covered pickup and drop-off area, and parking for 90 vehicles.

The fiscal team has endured many challenges this year through Luma, ServiceNow, process changes, agency growth, and restructuring—all with limited staff the entire time.

We are excited to bring on new team members with one more that started last week, another starting in a couple weeks, and two more going through the hiring process. Our team culture has vastly improved with positivity and collaboration.

Accomplishments

• Implemented numerous Luma changes including a complete overhaul of the underlying dimension structures, new procurement structure, new approval processes, new modules for employee reimbursements and purchasing cards, integration of monthly billings, and provided ongoing user training.
• Transitioned from Ivanti to ServiceNow with integration to Luma procurement for all purchases for ITS and our customers.
• First year of a SWCAP for our agency with a new cost-recovery model starting July 1st.
• A spending plan was developed with a rebuild of prior data and alignment, which has transformed our year-end processes and will provide a basis for each year forward.
• Worked with consolidated agencies to integrate assets, software and processes into ITS.
• Facilitated numerous procurement contracts for ITS and our customers.
• Revamped statewide budgeting processes and transparent reporting.
• Created a new budget packet with other teams for our customers.
• Created numerous reports in Luma to continue providing information for decision making for fiscal, personnel and operations. Given our Luma system dimension structure, we are now able to produce reports unique for each team, overall agency, and our customers.
• Rebuilt the personnel budgeting process, including year-end projections and reconciliation.
• Vastly expanded the agency’s purchasing card program to more employees.
• Underwent a financial audit of the past two years and completed follow-up from the prior audit.
• Improved transparency of data and processes through reporting and documentation.

Luma was an especially significant lift for the team with new ways to process literally every type of transaction, migrating data and balances from the old finance, procurement and human capital management systems, reconciling data and balances, paying employees, paying vendors, and completing year-end processes.

The fiscal team is just one of many that are making significant improvements to the performance and reputation of our agency.

Thank you!