The cyber threat landscape is constantly changing. New threats are always emerging, as are new bad actors, whether pursuing criminal activities or working on behalf of nation-states hostile to U.S. interests. The Pentagon already is moving quickly to implement its Zero Trust strategy, and sees it as a foundational part of IT modernization and digital transformation, whether on a battlefield or in essential functions such as logistics. The DoD...

Federal agencies have been mandated to migrate to IPv6 – the next-generation Internet protocol, designed to replace version 4 (IPv4) that has been in use since 1983. The move to IPv6 holds the potential to reduce operating costs for cloud service providers and faster performance for agencies that are looking to improve their systems’ throughput. Join us for this session to hear thought leaders from government and industry discuss t...

The emphasis on implementing zero trust architectures throughout federal networks is intended to reinforce the Government’s defenses against increasingly sophisticated and persistent threat campaigns. This focus represents a major step forward in strengthening agencies’ cybersecurity – and provides the opportunity to enhance cybersecurity within those networks through microsegmentation. Application segmentation is a component...

Cybersecurity is usually framed in terms of IT – from malware to phishing to ransomware, federal agencies are paying attention to securing their networks and endpoints. But leaders often overlook security measures for operational technology (OT) and industrial control systems (ICS), such as building automation systems, physical access control systems, physical environment monitoring systems, and implementing a zero trust architecture. In...

The advent of the pandemic in early 2020 demonstrates the truth of the old saying, “necessity is the mother of invention.” State and local governments that had been hesitant to adopt artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in their IT suddenly had to cope with huge citizen demand for services such as unemployment assistance, while simultaneously providing the capability for their own employees to work remotely. A sur...

When the White House issued Executive Order 14028, “Improving the Nation's Cybersecurity” in May 2021, it established the framework for the Office of Management and Budget’s January 2022 memorandum directing all agencies to implement a Federal Zero Trust Strategy. The Department of Defense has now released its own Zero Trust Strategy and Roadmap, which spells out its four high-level, integrated strategic goals in achieving ze...

Much of cybersecurity is focused on protecting users’ identities and personal information. This approach has numerous benefits, not just for the individual users but for the systems with which they interact – it protects people from malicious activities such as identity theft, while it also cuts down on bad actors stealing credentials to enter IT systems and wreak havoc, from ransomware to data exfiltration. The National Institute...

Many federal agencies, especially – but not limited to – the Department of Defense rely on warehousing as an essential part of their logistics operations and asset management strategies. The pandemic highlighted how quickly supply chain issues, especially with regard to IT, can snarl the availability of parts and finished products. Agencies dependent on the smooth flow of parts and finished products suffered in meeting their missio...

Government agencies below the federal level – whether state, local, tribal, or territorial (SLTT) – face the same cyber threats as their national counterparts, but without the same level of resources dedicated to their protection. To help address this problem, in September the Department of Homeland Security announced two new grant programs specifically to boost cybersecurity for SLTT agencies, and published the Notice of Funding O...

One of the major challenges for IT administrators and staff during the recent pandemic was the explosion of the network as working from home became the norm. Agencies that didn’t already have a good handle on the number of devices connected to their networks or how those devices were configured found themselves overwhelmed by the vast expansion of their vulnerable attack surface. Since that time, the attack surface has continued to expan...