IT Strategic Plan Cybersecurity Data

City of El Paso

Cyber

Security

Cybersecurity strategies are a collaboration, discussion, and resulting guidance between the city’s Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Information Technology leadership, and Department leadership and management.

City of El Paso IT Strategic Plan

DoITS

The program has been operational since 2016 and participates and coordinates with all city departments, El Paso City-County Office of Emergency Management, and El Paso Fusion Matrix to support the Strategic Planning Process, Continuity of Operations, and Cybersecurity Incident Response initiatives. The City’s NIST CSF posture aggregate score has improved by 117% in the past six years.

Several accomplishments were completed in 2022 by the City of El Paso. Some of these accomplishments include:

  • Migration of city email to Office 365
  • Deployment of Microsoft 365 Defender security
  • Implementation of an Extended Detection and Response solution on 6,000 endpoints
  • Updates and improvements on the city’s account access management processes (third-party account request/creation, virtual private network (VPN) request/creation).

The city completed the migration of over 6,000 employee emails from on-premise systems to Microsoft O365. The migration allowed the city to apply Microsoft 365 Defender security and features such as multi-factor authentication and conditional access.

Cybersecurity
VPN Access Request Forms

Extended Detection & Response

Implementing an Extended Detection and Response (EDR) solution on 6,000 endpoints which integrates data from existing security systems, the EDR analytics engine and applied threat intelligence provides 24/7 threat prevention, detection, and integrated response actions.

Updated and improved the city’s account access management processes for City of El Paso (CoEP) employees and third-party users by leveraging updated policies and procedures, business alignment, risk management, automation, and user education. The processes rely on electronic form digital signature and record vetting of an access request via a digital form submission, automatically creating an access request ticket via the ITSM service desk system. Service Desk personnel can then review and approve the request and launch a scripted process that automates and standardizes account or VPN access creation and emails the username and login credentials to the user. This improvement has provided a quicker resolution return on access requests while still enforcing security controls.