James MagazineJames_July-August_2026_web - Flipbook - Page 61
ollowing my 28-year
career in the U.S.
Army, I have been
blessed and honored
to serve Georgia as
the executive director of the Georgia Cyber Center
at Augusta University for the past
seven years. What started as an
ambitious dream to bring together
government, academia and private
industry at one location, with a
common mission in cyber operations and cybersecurity, has blossomed into a national treasure.
I am proud of what our collective ecosystem in Augusta has
accomplished to date and encouraged by the improvement our state
agencies have made in their cybersecurity posture. Unfortunately, our
ability to defend ourselves against
debilitating cyber threats is being
outpaced by nation-state adversary
and international criminal organizations’ ability to exploit our information technology and operational
technology infrastructure.
In recent years, the threat has
also made a major shift to targeting small businesses and local
governments, which is not a fair
fight. To counter this threat at the
local level, we need our own transformational shift that can provide
affordable, tailorable and highly
effective cybersecurity solutions
to local-level organizations.
GROWING CYBERSECURITY CHALLENGE
Georgia’s economy is deeply interconnected, built on sectors such
as logistics, finance, healthcare,
manufacturing and government
services. This interconnectedness,
while powering economic growth,
also creates vulnerabilities that can
be exploited by cybercriminals. No
longer are the federal government
and large corporations the only
targets. Evil cyber threats now
prey on small businesses and local
governments with limited resources and weaker defenses. Even
worse, they prey on unsuspecting
individuals who often lose their life
savings in online scams.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation recently published their
annual 2025 Internet Crime Report.
For the tenth consecutive year,
reported financial losses attributed
to cybercrime incidents in
the U.S. increased, growing from
$16.6 billion in 2024 to $20.877 billion in 2025— a 26 percent increase.
In Georgia, reported financial
losses from cybercrime increased
from $420 million in 2024 to $535
million in 2025. Unfortunately, the
actual financial losses are closer
to seven to ten times the reported
amounts, considering legal costs,
reputational damage, infrastructure replacement costs, and the
fact that the majority of cybercrime is not reported. The top 3
most targeted critical infrastructure sectors were: 1) Healthcare
& Public Health; 2) Critical Manufacturing; and 3) Financial Services, all which are vital economic
drivers for our state.
While cybercrime is on the
rise, so is our talent deficit in cybersecurity. According to the U.S.
Department of Commerce-sponsored CyberSeek website, 514,359
cybersecurity jobs in America are
unfilled. In Georgia, 17,254 cybersecurity jobs are unfilled.
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