The New York City Fire Department (FDNY) said it’s aiming to build a digital firewall to protect the city’s emergency workers from cyber-attacks.
The request was published in the City Record and called for consultant services “for the development and implementation of protective strategies to address the cyber-threat of doxxing and to provide resiliency for the security of personal information.”
These include the development of a training program targeting agents that regularly interact with the public and anti-hack software.
The request says: “The service should provide real time threat mitigation and recovery capabilities in the event of access to and misappropriation of personally identifiable data during the course of official duties as a member of the FDNY.”
According to the New York Post, who spoke with FDNY spokesman Frank Dwyer, the move was preventative and not motivated by a particular attack.
The FDNY department database currently includes the personal information of over 15,000 emergency responders, as well as patient data and retirees.
Those records are usually kept to be shared with hospitals, health insurers and the federal Medicare system to allow the FDNY to submit reimbursement for a range of patient transport expenses and medical suppliers.
The creation of a reliable cybersecurity infrastructure could substantially aid efforts against malicious actors, given that data-in-transit is also usually more vulnerable than data-at-rest.
