For states and localities looking to automate repetitious work, reduce paper-based tasks and streamline processes, artificial intelligence (AI) holds a lot of promise. The National Association of State CIOs (NASCIO) in their recent report on AI and machine learning drew upon a Deloitte assessment that categorized the benefits of automation into four groups: relieve, split up, replace, and augment. The challenge for state and local agencies is...

It is an unfortunate fact of life that the cyber threat landscape is constantly adapting, evolving, and expanding. There are more devices looking to connect to government systems, especially as workers seek to keep working from home or transition to splitting their time between remote and office sites. This has created a new vulnerability – the burnout of cybersecurity professionals. They are getting stretched thin, keeping up with new m...

“Infantry wins battles, logistics wins wars.” That quote by Army General John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I, summarizes why logistics is so important to the military. Today the U.S. military faces even greater logistics challenges, as technology amplifies warfighters’ force execution but adds complications to the vast array of supplies needed to support them.The modern warfighter m...

The use of operational technology (OT) is spreading rapidly across government agencies at all levels as they use sensors and remotely-controlled devices for many different applications. But agencies working in such blended IT/OT environments are now facing increased risk of cyber attacks targeting the OT side of the equation, and most of the sectors classified as critical infrastructure make extensive use of OT. The Department of Defense in 20...

When the FBI released its 2021 Internet Crime Report, one statistic showed that ransomware attacks increased about 50% from 2020 levels, targeting everything from healthcare and education to law enforcement and municipalities. The rapid growth of ransomware attacks can damage your agency beyond its impact on downtime and the financial burden of recovery. Your agency’s reputation with its customers can be damaged. Taking steps in advance...

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...