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Oxnard IT chief outlines cybersecurity priority, staffing and modernization plans
Summary
City of Oxnard Chief Information Officer Rob Rubin told the council Feb. 3 that defending the city from cyberattacks and "keeping the lights on" are IT’s top priorities; he outlined staffing, a PC refresh program, a new network operations center and recent cross-department projects.
Rob Rubin, the city’s chief information officer, told the Oxnard City Council on Feb. 3 that IT’s top priority is defending the city against cyberattacks while also ensuring critical systems remain operational.
Rubin said his department supports about 1,875 employees across the city and is organized into three divisions: business engagement; solution delivery (applications, GIS and data management); and infrastructure and cybersecurity. He said IT has 39 authorized positions with 32 currently filled.
"Number one by far is defend the city," Rubin said, adding that the department averages roughly 25,000 cyber attack attempts per month but that most are detected and blocked by perimeter defenses. He listed other recent investments: a scheduled PC refresh (about 20% of devices replaced each year on a five-year cycle), rollout of Microsoft Office citywide, and a newly implemented network operations center for 24/7 monitoring of servers and services.
Rubin said the solution delivery team supports about 350 applications and more than 450 distinct databases. He described work with the police department to upgrade 911 dispatch and records-management systems, application support for finance (credit-card processing) and a document-management rollout with the fire department. The GIS team, he said, supports more than 1,200 miles of mapped roads and hundreds of map layers used for city asset management.
Council members thanked Rubin for the overview and asked technical and operational questions about the monthly attack statistics and how IT prioritizes projects with limited staff. Rubin described a force-ranked prioritization process driven by departmental leaders and said the department meets regularly with department heads to align work.
Rubin said the city is pursuing a multi-year infrastructure modernization program to replace unsupported systems, and noted the importance of staff training to reduce successful social-engineering attacks. "We run with bad news, walk with good news," he said, describing a culture that prioritizes transparency and accountability.
The presentation was given as part of a series of departmental workshops the council is using to inform budget and policy priorities for the coming year. The council did not take action on IT policy during the meeting; Rubin said more budget-level details would be presented during the annual budget process.
