THREATQ FOR:

Government Agencies

We all rely on our government agency computer systems for vital services and information. As government agencies are considered critical infrastructure, they are under constant attack from hackers, political activists and foreign state-sponsored actors. The rate of attack is increasing and, unfortunately, government cyber defense is not keeping pace, particularly in the area of situational awareness. The first step to detecting, responding and recovering from incidents is finding a way to increase situational awareness.

Key Government Agency Challenges

RESOURCES

One of the most significant risk areas identified by federal government agency internal assessments is internal resources – people, technology and funding. Government IT and security teams are doing their best to establish situational awareness by combining raw threat feeds with existing security information and event management (SIEM) and log management tools. However, this approach fails to achieve this objective and ultimately drives up alert fatigue for an already overwhelmed staff. Eliminating alert fatigue and accelerating situational awareness requires prioritized, contextually relevant, real-time threat intelligence that seamlessly integrates with existing tools and practices.

SENSITIVITY TO BREACH

Government agencies face the continual challenge of balancing access and transparency against protecting constituents’ sensitive information. Doing this requires a level of openness that makes it impossible to prevent all intrusions. Complicating matters, most of the emphasis to date for government security has been on preventive tools, techniques and procedures. Government agencies must shift their focus beyond prevention to include detection, response and recovery.

THREAT LANDSCAPE

Government agencies are facing an ever-expanding threat landscape driven by two factors. First, the abundance of legacy IT provides a broad target for malicious actors due to the persistence of unpatched, unprotected and even unsupported operating systems and applications. Second, government agencies are moving to the cloud and adopting mobile and Internet of Things (IoT) devices at an accelerating rate. These technologies are critical to delivering new levels of government service and constituent responsiveness, but at the same time, they significantly increase the government agency attack surface. Maintaining current visibility into the entire infrastructure and continually re-evaluating and reprioritizing threat intelligence helps government agencies protect an expanding digital landscape against a growing threat landscape.