“Build it in, don’t bolt it on” is a mantra we all learn when we study cybersecurity, yet we see it in practice far too rarely. Our adversaries also know this principle and have begun to implement it by infecting the supply chain – hardware and software – as close to the source as possible. DLT technology partners Crowdstrike and Symantec both note the trend in recent threat reports. In their July,2018 report¹, Crowdstrike notes that:

This month, Symantec caught up with Don Maclean, Chief Cyber Security Technologist, DLT, to get his thoughts on today’s top cyber challenges. You can hear more from Don at the Symantec Government Symposium on Oct. 30, as he shares his perspective on the “Aligning Cyber Priorities and Modernization Policies” panel.

2018 marks the 15^th year of the National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, a government/industry effort – observed every October – that works to ensure every American has the resources they need to “be safer and more secure online” and educating everyone about the roles they play in helping to safeguard the internet.

Symantec’s 2018 Internet Security Threat Report is here. Based on data collected by Symantec’s massive security infrastructure (the largest civilian threat collection network in the world), the report has become the de facto standard for giving enterprises and public organizations essential information to help secure their systems effectively.

By the nature of the topic, the report isn’t an easy read. Expect to be perturbed. However, the insights provided into today’s rapidly evolving threat landscape are invaluable.

No sooner do you have your arms around one cybersecurity vulnerability then another surfaces. This time it’s Meltdown and Spectre, both of which can cause data leak from kernel memory. These vulnerabilities are particularly worrying since they impact practically all computers and involve multiple IT vendors including processor players Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, and ARM.

Identity management, the process of identifying individuals in your system and controlling the access they have to certain resources, is an area of cyber security that state and local government employees have quite a bit of confidence in. Yet data shows there’s room for improvement.

DLT partner, Symantec, has put together a list of seven items you must add to any incident response plan. Here’s how it translates to government agencies.

1. Have a Workable Plan

If you’re wondering where to spend your federal fiscal year-end dollars, no doubt cybersecurity is top of mind. With threats increasing and constantly evolving, protecting federal systems, networks, and data has never been more important.

But this year, there’s a new imperative for federal CIOs – the Presidential Executive Order on Strengthening the Cybersecurity of Federal Networks and Critical Infrastructure.

Another nameless, faceless adversary (or as the U.S Army calls them “the enemy with no face”) struck again in the last week of June. Hot on the heels of WannaCry attack in May, the Petya ransomware campaign brought widespread disruption to organizations, government agencies, and infrastructure worldwide.

It will come as no surprise to anyone that 2016 saw an alarming increase in targeted attacks aimed at politically motivated sabotage and subversion. This new level of ambition by cyber criminals is corroborated by the annual Internet Security Threat Report from DLT partner, Symantec. The perceived success of several campaigns – particularly the U.S.