Every security professional knows that the adversary has the advantage. Security professionals have to find every vulnerability (good luck with that) and remediate it, and the enemy only needs to find one vulnerability and exploit it. This asymmetry underlies their economic advantage: finding one vulnerability gives access to a huge number of systems. In addition, for those willing to forego their conscience and risk jail, it is possible to make large sums of money in a short time, even with a minimum of technical expertise.
Most successful intrusions involve exploitation of well-known vulnerabilities, typically documented as “CVEs”. Even so, bad actors are constantly innovating, using the best technology for the worst purposes, such as leveraging cloud resources (their own or others’) to amplify attacks or mine bitcoins or abusing e-mail to promulgate spam and phishing attacks.
To fight known attacks requires scrupulous attention to the “boring” fundamentals of security: patching and software updates, policy enforcement, identity management, password policies, proper inventory, and other seemingly mundane practices.
To stress the importance of the fundamentals, consider the famous speech by Admiral McRaven at the University of Texas graduation ceremony in 2014 (https://bit.ly/2ROkRFz). McRaven, a former SEAL, emphasizes that SEALS have to make their bed every morning, and are subject to inspection of the task. Why such a seemingly trivial requirement for those carrying spectacularly dangerous and intricate operations? McRaven’s reply: because if a SEAL fails on the little things, they will surely fail on the big things.
Cybersecurity is no different. If systems are unpatched, or the IDs of former employees are still valid, it makes no sense to implement a high-end behavioral analysis system based using the latest artificial intelligence techniques. If log collection, storage, and correlation are deficient, high-end machine-learning systems will provide little value: “garbage in, garbage out” still applies.
Still, it is essential to keep pace with the enemy, who innovate constantly. Defenders must also innovate, or deploy innovative technology, but only if they can rest on, or amplify, a sound security posture. Keep a close eye on new technology and the benefits it can provide, but make sure you are not attempting to compensate for simple weaknesses with complex solutions.
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Cybersecurity, Education, Market Intelligence
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The 2024 National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) Annual Conference took place in New Orleans, Louisiana earlier this month, where state leaders shared key insights into FY25 top technology priorities, challenges and lessons learned. Some of the key focus areas included AI, with emphasis on generative AI (Gen AI) tech, data management, governance, privacy and accessibility, cybersecurity and risk management and digital services and modern government.
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Defending against cyberattacks is an ongoing battle for the Air Force, Army, and Navy, and requires strategic maneuvering and intelligent solutions. An integral part of these solutions has been the collaboration and technical support from the defense industrial base (DIB). Recently, the principal cyber advisors from each branch announced their challenges and priorities geared toward addressing cyber needs.
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Recently the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released a roadmap entitled Vision for the IC Information Environment to outline a vision to protect the nation from adversaries and maintain a “strategic advantage" over those intending to harm its information infrastructure. The roadmap contains recommendations from a collaboration of more than one hundred technical leaders from the intelligence community (IC).
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Cloud Computing, Cybersecurity, Market Intelligence
Originally passed in 2014, the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) was designed to improve the management of all-things-IT across federal agencies. It essentially realigned how the government purchases and updates its technology, with an aim at grading agencies based on their ability to adhere to and improve on the following categories:
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Zero Trust Architecture
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This week's roundup of the latest news and insights gathered from IBM's Government Research Institute thought leaders:
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Cybersecurity, Federal Government, State & Local Government, Tips and How-Tos
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Cloud Computing, Cybersecurity, DevSecOps, Market Intelligence
"Zero Trust is a cybersecurity strategy and framework that embeds IT security mechanisms throughout an architecture that generate metadata used to secure, manage, and monitor every device user, application, and network transaction at the perimeter and within every network enclave."
From the Department of Defense (DoD) Zero Trust Reference Architecture v1.0
Toan Le
Cloud Computing, Cybersecurity, Federal Government
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Cloud Computing, Cybersecurity, Market Intelligence, State & Local Government
If you have been looking for the right time to sell your technology product or service to the state, local and education (SLED) market, now is the time to act. With thirty-six states beginning their fiscal year on July 1st, now is the time to position yourself to take advantage of a confluence of once-in-a-lifetime conditions that have left the SLED market booming with opportunity. Here are some of the factors driving that opportunity:
New Leadership
Yvonne Maffia
Cybersecurity, Federal Government, Market Intelligence, News
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Dawit Blackwell
Analytics & Data Science, Big Data & Analytics, Cloud Computing, Cybersecurity, Market Intelligence
The COVID-19 pandemic has spurned greater demand for health information technology (IT) by demonstrating the importance of having robust medical research, health surveillance and healthcare systems capable of rapidly responding to new and developing situations, something which requires strong IT investment in big data, cybersecurity and cloud. In addition, both the pandemic and emerging technologies have led to numerous changes within the healthcare industry, such as telehealth expansion and increased use of wearables, which necessitate robust health IT solutions.
Gabriel Zighelboim
Cybersecurity
Zero Trust is a concept gaining significant attention across the federal landscape. The idea isn’t new, and yet the notion of "never trust, always verify" is appearing more and more in memos, solicitations and other federal government announcements. For example, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released memo M-22-09, "Moving the U.S. Government Toward Zero Trust Cybersecurity Principles," in late January 2022.
Susanna Patten
Cybersecurity
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Don Maclean
Cybersecurity
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Don Maclean