According to the National Association of State CIOs, the top two enterprise risks faced by state governments in 2022 are cybersecurity and technology. Cybersecurity includes everything from data protection and ransomware to identity theft and stolen network credentials. Technology risks include aging or obsolete systems, data management, and handling cloud portfolios, to name a few. State and local agencies face a particularly difficult challe...

The field of higher education faces a number of challenges - declining enrollments, evolving continuing education and workforce development needs, fast-changing classroom technologies, even heightened cybersecurity requirements to deal with the threat of ransomware. Gartner’s "Top Technology Trends in Higher Education for 2022," released in February, identifies the changes in higher education business models and students’ learning...

Ransomware attacks on state and local agencies, healthcare systems, and educational institutions have grown exponentially over the past several years, in part because they’re seen as “soft targets” without the cybersecurity expertise to protect themselves well. For many organizations, the idea of purchasing cyber liability insurance may be a good idea, especially if they don’t have the resources to undertake extensive c...

While government agencies continue their migration to the cloud, concerns about security continue. A recent survey by Fidelis Cybersecurity found that 95% of cybersecurity professionals are extremely to moderately concerned about public cloud security. Their top three concerns: misconfiguration of the cloud platform (71%), exfiltration of sensitive data (59%), and insecure APIs (54%). These are the fears that haunt government IT professionals,...

The federal government places a lot of emphasis on basic cyber hygiene practices that employees should use, such as using unique passwords for every application and changing them regularly, guarding against clicking on suspect links buried in emails, and backing up data frequently. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) offers a wide range of cyber hygiene services to help agencies improve their cybersecurity postures thro...

Agencies are trying to move faster than ever to modernize and transform their systems and processes. For federal financial service agencies, from the Internal Revenue Service to the Securities and Exchange Commission, accelerating the development of new applications and the modernization of legacy ones is a critical part of meeting their mission. From Agile to DevSecOps, continuous integration/continuous development (CI/CD) automation to robot...

There is a lot of emphasis on IT modernization in the federal government, from the push to grow funding for the Technology Modernization Fund to Army efforts to modernize IT for multi-domain operations. On another track, the President's Management Agenda identifies workforce transformation as its top priority. There is a clear connection between these two broad initiatives – modernizing IT is a way to streamline how programs are managed...

When the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) was signed into law in November 2021, it allocated $1.2 trillion for infrastructure initiatives across the country. While the focus has been on large tranches of funding allocated for sweeping categories of infrastructure – roads and bridges, internet connectivity, water systems, etc. – less attention has been paid to the role of digital transformation within these groupings. F...

Headlines across the country have shown that ransomware can target organizations of any size, from the smallest town hall to major state agencies. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed into law earlier this year included $1 billion for grants to be awarded to state, local, or tribal governments to address cybersecurity risks and threats such as ransomware. At the same time, cyber insurance providers have been raising their premiums...

In today’s heatedly competitive job market, government agencies need solutions for retaining top performers, upskilling and reskilling the workforce, and recruiting new talent efficiently. Having a strong Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA) program is critical to attract and retain top talent. The use of responsible artificial intelligence (AI) can improve agencies’ diversity goals, while adhering to well-defined...