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Rishipal Yadav · not your CISO

Measuring the Integrated Cyber Attack Surface Across US County Government Networks

Attack-Surface Government Network-Security Policy
Rishipal Yadav
Author
Rishipal Yadav
Assistant Manager – Cybersecurity @ Uniqus Consultech · CISSP · GCP-ACE · M.Eng Cybersecurity, UMD · Writing at not your CISO
Table of Contents

Institution: University of Maryland — School of Public Policy
Advisor: Prof Charles Harry →, School of Public Policy, UMD College Park
Period: Fall 2022 – Spring 2023
Full paper: Read on OSF →

Summary
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This research developed a methodology to measure and compare the integrated cyber attack surface of US county government networks — a sector that is often overlooked in cybersecurity policy discussions despite being responsible for critical local services.

The work involved passive reconnaissance techniques to enumerate exposed services, ports, and infrastructure across a representative sample of US counties, and produced a comparative scoring framework useful for policy prioritisation.

Key findings
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  • County government networks show significant variance in exposed attack surface, often correlating with budget and population size
  • Many counties expose legacy services and administrative interfaces directly to the public internet
  • The measurement framework provides a replicable baseline for longitudinal tracking of public-sector security posture