By Chetrice Mosley-Romero

As with a lot of things, be it a news story or something we hear about someone’s life, we discover a great backstory that ties it all together in a way that makes for an ending or an outcome that’s as unexpected as it is thought provoking.

That’s something I discovered recently as we completed the 2021 Indiana Cybersecurity Strategic Plan. 

Late in his legendary life, Pablo Picasso was quoted as saying, ”Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.”

While it's not clear what, specifically, Picasso was referring to, it does suggest that for a man -- some of whose most famous works of art have been admired for decades for their chaotic design --  that his brilliance was reflected not only by what he created, but the vivid understanding he possessed about the necessity of having a plan as an absolute requirement for achieving success.

By contrast, the world of cybersecurity is highly complex and, yet it is cluttered with information, misinformation, and disinformation. In a word, it’s chaotic.

And, not unlike Picasso and his ability to harness some of that chaos and turn it into creativity, the necessity of having a strategic plan to achieve success – some of which is created out of chaos – is at the heart of why Indiana’s strategic approach for cybersecurity is producing results and why the Hoosier state is rapidly emerging as a leader among all states.

The 2021 Indiana Cybersecurity Strategic Plan encompasses not only the breadth of cyber as a topic, but its depth as well. Organized into three sections:

• Part One defines the strategic framework, in which the Indiana Executive Council on Cybersecurity (IECC or Council) was created and built and how it all came together, starting with the Executive Order signed by Governor Eric Holcomb in 2017.
• Part Two features an executive summary of the implementation plans developed by members of the Council’s 15 committees and working groups and its 2021 recommendations.
• Entitled “Real People, Real Work”, Part Three highlights the Council’s four-step progress, in real terms, that accounts for the fact that 78 percent of the 69 deliverables and 77 percent of the 120 objectives were completed by the Council over a three-year period.
  • It also outlines the IECC’s best practices, including a reference to the State of Cyber Report (2017-2021) -- also a great read if you’re looking to learn more about how cyber is happening throughout the state -- and there’s also a stated commitment for the IECC moving forward.

As the State of Indiana’s Cybersecurity Program Director, I am proud of the work of the Governor’s Executive Council on Cybersecurity, especially when you consider that the IECC is the first-of-its-kind organization in the country and our structure is already being used by other states as a blueprint for how cyber can operate as a part of state government, just as it does now to help  protect all Hoosiers, businesses, and local government, including our schools and military.

Most of all, the opportunity to lead the day-to-day management of the Council is special. The ability to experience such a high level of collaboration with and among our more than 250 advisory members – all of whom are senior level executives and subject matter experts from the public and private sector. And with our 35 voting members, whose leadership is valued in helping to guide the implementation of the deliverables and objectives that have been completed, as well as the 68 deliverables and 134 objectives that defines what we expect to accomplish in the years to come.

As the legendary radio broadcaster Paul Harvey, known for sharing backstories, seemingly, from every corner of our world, would've said just before signing off the air, “Now you know, the rest of the story” of how Picasso showed up in Indiana's cybersecurity strategic plan.

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And, to learn more about everything Indiana is doing with cyber, we invite you to visit our Cyber Hub website, read and sign-up for our blog, check out our “Days of Our Cyber Lives” podcast series, and be sure to follow us on Twitter and visit our Facebook page!