The most secure state in the union?

Came across a story today noting the Commonwealth of Virginia (and I bet you thought it was a state) was awarded top honors for information security by the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO). It seems Virginia's "Interlocking Spheres of Collaborative Protection" program "strengthens the security of sensitive citizen information across all branches of government". I tried to find out a bit more about these interlocking spheres, but have not been able to find anything. I have dealt with some county governments in Virginia and will reach out to see if I can dig in a bit.

Overall though state and local government faces the same challenges that our Federal government has and many commercial entities.  Protecting confidential information is a challenge.  But Government also has to have some transparency and a duty to make certain information available.  Balancing those two requirements is a difficult task. 

State government IT departments have very much of a coop-a-tive relationship with each other.  Each one wants to be the best at IT in general and security in particular.  Yet, when one state is successful with a particular technology, many other states will seek to imitate that same technology or technique.  I am sure that we will see other states adopt the Interlocking spheres program soon.  No matter what it is exactly ;-)