INFO Assistant Professor Ido Sivan-Sevilla leads groundbreaking UMD research mapping county-level cyber vulnerabilities nationwide
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In AFCEA’s Signal Magazine article “A Crucial First Look at the Nation’s Cyber Attack Surfaces,” University of Maryland researchers offer the first comprehensive county-level assessment of U.S. cyber vulnerabilities. Led by Ido Sivan-Sevilla, assistant professor at the College of Information (INFO), alongside Mark McDermott and Charles Harry, the team analyzed more than 42,000 internet-facing devices across 3,095 counties to identify regional risks and patterns of exposure.
Their findings, published in the Journal of Cybersecurity, reveal that larger and more populous counties face greater diversity in potential attack surfaces leaving local governments that manage critical services such as elections, emergency response, and water systems at risk. The researchers used open-source intelligence tools like Shodan and Censys to safely map vulnerabilities without compromising county systems, creating the first “heat map” of nationwide exposure.
Sivan-Sevilla, who also leads UMD’s Tech Policy Hub, emphasizes that the study’s goal is not only to identify weaknesses but to help counties prioritize cybersecurity resources and promote collaboration among policymakers, researchers, and local governments. The team is expanding its work to explore patch management trends and develop an index to measure cyber resilience over time.
For more on how University of Maryland researchers are helping strengthen local cybersecurity through data-driven insight, read the full article here.
The original article was written by Kimberly Underwood and published by AFCEA’s Signal Magazine on October 1, 2025.