UTSA’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency program awarded $1.2 million grant

Two-year pilot program will develop guidance based on best practices to address identification, categorization and prioritization of IT systems

San Antonio is a prominent city in the cybersecurity field for both education and jobs.

Now, with the help of a new grant, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has awarded the University of Texas at San Antonio’s center for infrastructure assurance and security a $1.2 million dollar grant.

The program is meant to help local governments establishing a pilot program to help state, local, tribal and territorial governments identify high value assets.

These high value assets are typically critical information or an information system that would cause an organization serious impact to the the governments ability to perform its mission or conduct business, if it was lost of corrupt.

The CISA directors says as the nation’s risk advisor, the collaboration with our stakeholders to enhance the protection of our nation’s critical infrastructure, is invaluable.

In a time of increased cyber threats, the relationships built through cooperative agreements to supply cyber capabilities and expertise are foundational to safeguarding the nation’s cyber and critical infrastructure.

Communities across the country are becoming increasingly targeted by cyber threats, domestic and foreign, making it more important than ever to help our local governments.

The two-year pilot program will develop guidance based on best practices to address the identification, categorization and prioritization of IT systems to enable increased protection.

UTSA has also partnered with the National Security Agency (NSA) for more than 16 years to create the talent and tools needed to address the nation’s toughest cyber security challenges.

To celebrate the partnership, the NSA has named UTSA a featured school –- one of only 10 across the country to be designated as a center of academic excellence in cyber operations, cyber defense and research.


About the Authors:

Roslyn Jimenez is a news producer at KSAT. Before joining the team, she was a producer and video editor at KIII-TV and a radio intern in Corpus Christi. She graduated from Del Mar College with an Associate's degree in political science and liberal arts. Roslyn is family-oriented and loves spending time with her fiancé and chihuahua Paco.

Max Massey is the GMSA weekend anchor and a general assignments reporter. Max has been live at some of the biggest national stories out of Texas in recent years, including the Sutherland Springs shooting, Hurricane Harvey and the manhunt for the Austin bomber. Outside of work, Max follows politics and sports, especially Penn State, his alma mater.