Cookeville IT Focuses On Infrastructure To Be Ahead Of Cyber Attacks

In the age of cyber attacks, Cookeville Chief Technology Officer Steve Corder said infrastructure security has to be the top priority.

Corder said when securing infrastructure is not the top priority every day, that is how a ransomware attack can happen. Corder said with all the city’s technology, his job is like being a single service provider to 14 different city agencies.

“You have to assume that something is going to happen, you have to assume that something has already happened and you just don’t know about it yet,” Corder said. “That’s kind of how I think about things. I just kind of assume that the enemy is inside the gates and what can we do to stop him or slow him down.”

Corder said he is helped by City Manager James Mills seeing the importance of active security protection, not just reacting to problems once they already happen. Corder said he is excited to move into the new Police Department so they can work side by side to ensure all police technology is working.

“I don’t think a lot of people really, realize how much they actually have,” Corder said. “They’ve got their police car cameras, they’ve got their body cameras, they’ve got their computer dispatch system. They’ve got laptops in all their vehicles that they use for records management and being able to look up suspects and license plate numbers. They have a tremendous amount of stuff and it’s all very important and it has to work properly, all the time.”

Corder said with all the city’s systems outside just the police department, he has to juggle and know when to switch gears to answer city needs.

“We’ve got wireless networks, wired networks in all the different buildings,” Corder said. “We’ve got a lot of different security cameras, lets just put it that way… lots of security cameras everywhere. A lot of departments have their own applications that they run and they keep up with.”

Corder said he was settling into his role as Chief Technology Officer after taking the title in February. He said that the work has remained the same, the only difference is his official title.