Douglas County authorizes staff to join Minnesota County Cyber Response Team

Douglas County’s governing body voted to authorize county participation in MNcert, the Minnesota County Cyber Response Team, agreeing to confidentiality and provider agreements that would allow county technology staff to volunteer to assist other counties during cybersecurity incidents.

The Technology Director told the board the MNcert program is a volunteer, statewide mutual-aid network that supplies forensic and technical assistance when a county experiences a cyber incident. “That’s why I’m here today is to have the board’s authorization to do that,” the Technology Director said, asking the board to approve Douglas County’s participation.

The director said the county’s materials for participation — a confidentiality agreement and a provider agreement — had been reviewed by AMC legal and by attorney Larson. He said the arrangements would cover Douglas County and make available a pool of roughly 40 technical volunteers from other counties.

The Technology Director named Josh Shuck as the county’s cybersecurity analyst who would participate locally, and clarified that when staff assist other counties they would be on county time. The director and board members likened the program to a mutual-aid contract used by fire departments and noted MNcert’s assistance would often be remote.

Board members asked about likely deployment length for staff assisting other counties. The director said deployments would typically be short, estimating a worst-case initial engagement of about 48 hours because, he said, once insurers are involved they often assume command of the response and bring their own forensics teams.

A motion to approve participation in MNcert was made and seconded. In the subsequent roll-call vote, members Meyer, Schmidt, Kalina, Rapp and Wei were recorded as voting yes. The Chair announced, “Motion carries.”

After the vote the board moved to adjourn and the meeting concluded.