Managing Director Sikich LLC Sa, California, United States
In 2025, the State of Nevada experienced a 28-day statewide disruption to government operations caused by a major cyber incident. While the initiating cause was technical, the consequences were operational, organizational, and public-facing, requiring leadership to coordinate response, sustain continuity of essential services, and manage a long-duration incident affecting more than 60 state agencies.
This session shares the cascading effects of cyber incidents that emergency managers may have to contend with. Presented jointly by Nevada's emergency management leadership and a cybersecurity and emergency management expert, this case study walks through how emergency management principles were applied when core government functions were disrupted for weeks rather than hours.
Attendees will examine decision points related to incident escalation, coordination across agencies, executive leadership engagement, staffing sustainability, and public communication during prolonged disruption. The session focuses on what emergency managers were expected to do when systems were unavailable, information was incomplete, and normal response structures were strained.
As cyber incidents increasingly create cascading impacts similar to natural disasters and infrastructure failures, emergency managers can no longer treat them as out-of-scope. Nevada's experience offers practical lessons for jurisdictions preparing to manage the consequences, regardless of cause, when operations fail.
