The RM of Silverwood proposed a resolution at last week’s Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities convention to have SARM to inquire into hiring IT personnel to reduce the risk. It passed, but the question of what comes next remains.
The City of Saskatoon’s loss of $1 million to a fraudster in the summer of 2021 was an example of how easy it can be for criminals to take advantage of weaknesses.The demand for a resolution comes after a calendar year in which SARM was unable to find favourable renewal terms for cyber liability coverage, with higher premiums and less coverage offered by a pre-existing provider. Part of the reason for the high rates is the RM’s lack of protocols to prevent crime.
“RM administrators have so many tasks that they have to do, it’s virtually impossible for them to do them on their own with the way they’re staffed,” said Colin Warnecke, manager of risk management at SARM. He would like RM administrators to implement good controls, preferably with IT professionals, to better protect themselves, including adding multi-factor authentication and backup systems, he said.
“If you can have a water agreement or a fire truck agreement in place for sharing between municipalities, I think it’s a really good time to start having the conversation as to what that may look like in the digital age,” Schmidt said, noting that as demand for broadband internet access increases, so do the potential risks.Article content