Cybersecurity

Agencies Need a New Cybersecurity Approach Following Breaches

In the past 90 days alone, several major attacks on federal agencies have made the news. Foreign state actors used anti-virus software to steal sensitive material on U.S. cybersecurity capabilities from one government agency, and another agency reported a breach that may have enabled hackers to trade on — and profit from — insider information.

Additionally, the 2016 Federal Information Security Management Act of 2014 report foundmore than 30,000 data security incidents last year. All of these developments underscore not only the critical importance of cybersecurity, but also that agencies need a different approach if they want to implement and maintain effective security.

Cisco’s 2017 Annual Cybersecurity Report found that the majority (54 percent) of public sector organizations still take a project-based approach to purchasing security solutions. This is a reactionary approach and addresses problems only after they occur. However, by establishing a proactive cybersecurity strategy, leaders can shorten time to detection, respond to security events faster and better mitigate the impact of a breach.