VALENCIA (EP). The Generalitat won the CIO 100 Awards Spain 2023 in the category of the best information technology project for security and resilience for the Cybersecurity Plan of the Community of Valencia in support of the Administration of Valencia.
general director of information and communication technologies, Jose Manuel García Duartehe received the award at a gala dinner in Madrid, according to the Generalitat.
During his speech, he emphasized that this award “demonstrates Consell’s commitment to the cyber security of the Valencian administrations and the protection of citizens’ data”. In this sense, he emphasized that, thanks to the management of the resources offered by the plan, they could have “tools that are not normally available to them and increase their protection in a climate of increasing threat”.
Duarte recalled that “the initiative arose as a result of the cyber attacks suffered in 2021 after the pandemic” and that the plan was “greatly accepted” and allowed “a deeper understanding of the cyber security needs of the Valencian administrations, which will allow us to advance in the consolidation of its cyber defense with future agreements about cooperation.”
The awards were organized by Foundry, publisher of ComputerWorld and CIO magazines, and technology consultancy IDC, to recognize the work of people and entities who have contributed to the modernization, digitization and efficiency of their organizations through the use of technology. and innovation support.
These awards, which are part of the global CIO 100 Awards program, which is also organized in other neighboring countries, awarded a total of 13 innovative projects in Spain, including the Generalitat project.
The Valencia Cyber Security Model
The General Directorate of Information and Communication Technologies (DGTIC) implemented the plan through its specialized center for cyber security, CSIRT-CV, the oldest of the autonomous CERTS in Spain, which tackled the problem in a unified way against the challenge of heterogeneity and a high number of partners, according to the same sources.
The plan included expanding the prevention, detection and response model implemented in CSIRT-CV to 584 administrations. Through the collaboration of the National Cryptology Center’s Cyber Incident Response Center (CCN-CERT), the CSIRT-CV defined a federated model for deploying the National Center’s interconnected cybersecurity and surveillance tools across entities.
The Director General of ICT emphasized that the success of this model is based “on the coordination between all actors involved in the implementation of centralized response mechanisms, relying on the experience and maturity of the CSIRT-CV, which increased the effectiveness of the response by creating economies of scale”.
Duarte recalled that “all this caused the CCN-CERT to call the plan the “Valencia model of cyber security” and presented it as a success story for the rest of the autonomous communities, as it is considered a model of excellence realized by all of them, which accredits the maximum exemplarity of the project”.
Through the plan, a number of driving school itineraries differentiated according to professional profiles (elected officials, employees and technical workers) were made available to all municipal public employees.
The CEO of ICT further stated that “we have conducted online training events with great success, which have had a great impact on employee awareness. In them, real examples and attacks carried out by a hacker were revealed, the so-called ease with which our daily actions can endanger information systems and the data stored in them, so that they are more aware and know how to act preventively.