ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - With an ever-growing trove of sensitive information to safeguard, state officials have taken last year’s string of high-profile hacks into major companies to heart.
Minnesota’s network holds the same kinds of personal information unleashed by hackers at Target, Home Depot and other retailers - and then some. There’s credit card information, social security numbers, tax and health care information, birth records and disease tracking. The list goes on.
To protect it, the state obscures key data through several layers of encryption, constantly monitors for intruders and searches out potential weaknesses in its network. Minnesota officials communicate with other states and the federal government about potential threats.
It’s a never-ending effort.
“We have to be right all the time, 100 percent of the time, and (hackers) only have to be right once,” said Christopher Buse, the state’s chief information security officer.
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MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis plans to start a national center to spur development on Indian reservations, which have been plagued by poverty passed down through generations, according to the Fed bank’s outgoing president.
Minneapolis Fed President Narayana Kocherlakota announced the plan for the Center for Indian Country Development on Friday during a speech in Washington.
“It’s not just that incomes have been very low on reservations for decades,” Kocherlakota said in prepared remarks. “We now have large-scale and very current evidence of poverty persisting across generations within individual families. . This persistence represents a social and economic failure to develop the full productive and human potential of many of our children.”
The Star Tribune reported (https://strib.mn/1MNrjZjhttps://strib.mn/1MNrjZj ) the center will be co-directed by Sue Woodrow, a Fed official in Helena, Montana. There will be a search for another co-director. Kocherlakota, who is stepping down at the end of the year, said the plan is to have the center up and running by midsummer.
“I expect to look back on the establishment of the Center for Indian Country Development as an important part of my legacy, and am happy to say that it has the strong support of our management team and board of directors,” he said.
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MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - A lack of moisture across Minnesota means that the state’s lakes are seeing below-average water levels, and has some boating enthusiasts hoping for rain.
The Star Tribune reported (https://strib.mn/1xNWZH7https://strib.mn/1xNWZH7 ) that as of Friday, the Twin Cities area is in its ninth-driest year in 145 years, and 92 percent of the state was in a moderate drought. The weather is a dramatic shift from last year, when record-high water levels led to boating restrictions on some lakes.
Meteorologist Paul Douglas said the state needs 2 to 6 inches of rain to pull out of the drought. Until then, the state Department of Natural Resources is advising boaters to be aware of low water levels, which can damage propellers and boats.
“If this was toward Memorial Day and the lake was like this, I’d be concerned,” said Tom Jacob, owner of the Bay to Bay Boat Club on Lake Minnetonka. “I’m hoping for rain - just not like Noah’s ark last year.”
Still, he said, it’s too early in the season to worry.
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DULUTH, Minn. (AP) - Police have closed the case of a Duluth man who was found dead in January from an apparent head injury, after prosecutors say the man accused in his death acted in self-defense.
WDIO-TV reports that 33-year-old Dave Matthew Walker was found dead near 2nd Avenue West and 3rd Street on Jan. 17.
Officers initially arrested a 53-year-old man in the case, but he was released from jail without being charged.
Police said Friday that the St. Louis County Attorney’s Office has determined the man acted in self-defense.
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