As Texas officials work to fend off a recent barrage of cyberattacks coming out of Iran, the city of Austin’s technology security team says it’s on guard and at the ready to protect city systems and the personal data they store.

Gov. Greg Abbott announced Tuesday that websites belonging to state agencies have seen an increase in attempted cyberattacks coming out of Iran — about 10,000 per minute — in the days since Iranian general Qassem Soleimani was killed Friday in a U.S. drone strike.

Attacks to gather data have not been successful, Abbott said, but the Texas Department of Agriculture’s website was briefly defaced Tuesday with a photo of Soleimani by a self-described "Iranian Hacker." Similar attacks were reported in other states.

Iranian officials have threatened to retaliate by targeting U.S. interests, but Texas analysts have no way of knowing if the probes came from the Iranian government or were government-sanctioned, state officials said.

State officials said they are not aware of any Texas cities or municipalities that have been attacked, but security experts say that cities, large and small, can be soft targets.

Austin’s websites, like all networks, are attacked on a regular basis by a variety of bad actors, and the city does what it can to protect those sites and the data they contain, said Kevin Williams, chief information security officer for the city of Austin.

"I have a pretty robust team across city departments," he said. "I'm in constant contact with risk management, legal, technical folks at the utility departments, public safety, health, the airport. ... We approach everything from a risk management standpoint. It's about measuring the likelihood and the impact of things going wrong and prioritizing decisions based on those risks."

Williams’ office is also in contact with the FBI and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and receives cyberattack information from those sources, he said.

Eli Sugarman, who directs the cybersecurity program for the grant-making Hewlett Foundation, said cities of all sizes often find it hard to prevent cyberattacks.

Last year, on Sept. 11, a cyberattack shut down access to the Travis Central Appraisal District’s website for a week. Officials said there was no evidence that any data was breached during the attack, which involved a ransomware virus that encrypted and locked district files to hold them hostage for ransom. The district did not pay any funds to decrypt the files.

Cities "have limited resources to defend and secure themselves," Sugarman said. "They have a lot of older, legacy systems that are really difficult to maintain. And a lot of them interface directly with services and with people. It's a really complicated patchwork that needs to be maintained, updated and secured, and it’s just really hard to do that."

As a result, the average citizen should be aware of the risks and be vigilant, Sugarman said.

"Keep your system updated. Rely on Gmail to keep your email secure," Sugarman said. "Turn on two-factor authentication. Don't reuse passwords."

Since Soleimani was killed, the Texas Department of Information Resources has been preparing for attempted attacks amid worsening U.S. relations with Iran, state officials have said.

Abbott said the escalation in attempted cyberattacks from inside Iran was the first "pressing issue" discussed Tuesday during the second meeting of his Domestic Terrorism Task Force, which was formed last year after a white gunman targeted Latinos in El Paso, killing 22 people at a Walmart in August.

"These attacks from Iran-based entities, as well as around the globe, are going to continue," Abbott said.

Williams said attempts to hack personal information "happen to everybody, all over the world, every second of every day."

"Security is a function of business," he said. "The most secure computer is one that’s powered off, locked in a closet and not plugged into anything. But that stops your ability to actually be productive. ... Cybersecurity is a function of public safety. We’re here to protect the public’s data, the public’s interests and the services that the public relies upon."