Escalating tensions between the United States and Iran is leading to growing concerns about the potential for a cyberattack, including here in New York City.
New York is on a heightened level of security after the U.S. military struck three sites in Iran back in June, but Chief Technology Officer Matthew Fraser says the city is “most certainly prepared.”
NYC monitors over 100 billion cybersecurity incidents each week
“Whenever they look at spreading terror or whenever they look at targeting something, needless to say, New York comes very high on the list,” Fraser said.
Officials emphasize there are no credible threats, but Fraser says the city’s Office of Technology and Innovation, including its Cyber Command Unit, is monitoring over 100 billion cybersecurity incidents a week, compared 90 billion last year.
Most incidents are vetted through artificial intelligence.
Fraser walked CBS News New York’s Jennifer Bisram through the city’s joint security operations center in Downtown Brooklyn, where threats against critical networks that keep lights on, water running and transportation systems humming across the city are detected, deferred and deterred around the clock.
“In real time, we have people that are looking and responding to those types of alerts. We have people that are building packages to go out and hunt to find the latest threats that may exist,” Fraser said.
The Office of Technology and Innovation says every quarter, it’s training new students and producing cybersecurity experts through its NYC Cyber Academy.
Drones are an emerging threat, OEM commissioner says
CBS News New York was also given access to New York City Office of Emergency Management’s watch command center.
Commissioner Zach Iscol says last year’s IT outage is an example of how the city’s emergency partners came together and used backup systems to keep the city running.
“One of the things we saw last year with the CrowdStrike incident is unlike a lot of other places around the county, New York City was able to deliver all essential services, and a lot of that credit goes to the coup team here,” he said.
City officials say threats from the sky, however, are a concern.
“Drones is one of those newer emerging threats, and so there are responses for that. We depend heavily on our federal partners here in the city,” Iscol said.
While the ability to take a drone down in the city is limited, there’s a safety level of protection that can be put around sensitive and secure facilities to safeguard against hackers.
In the meantime, cybersecurity specialists say New Yorkers can avoid a data breach by using strong passwords, multi-factor authentications and keeping all software systems updated.
