Federal agencies have been ordered to move toward zero trust architectures with alacrity, through Executive Order 14028 on improving cybersecurity and the Office of Management and Budget’s two memoranda, M-22-09 on meeting zero trust cybersecurity principles, and M-21-31 on improving investigative and remediation capabilities following cyber breaches. The Department of Homeland Security observed in its Zero Trust Implementation Strategy...

Generative artificial intelligence (genAI) has arrived with the force of a tsunami across the federal government. In October, Executive Order 14110 on the safe, secure, and trustworthy development and use of AI established the broad outlines for how agencies should evaluate and implement their AI use cases. Now the Office of Management and Budget has issued a memorandum directing agencies to institute governance and risk management processes g...

Successful federal modernization requires an artful blend of people, process, and technology—with a relentless focus on enabling business transformation. A “digital playbook” can provide a comprehensive guide to the process, describing both overarching strategy and tactical approaches. Using a templatized technology strategy can boost mission outcomes while humanizing data-driven modernization and leveraging artificial intell...

Critical infrastructure services in North America face accelerating threats from both nation-states and other sophisticated threat actors. Governments globally are grappling with how to best balance incentives, support, and direct oversight. Meanwhile, critical infrastructure owners and operators face significant challenges with technology, staff resources, and expertise to better manage cyber resilience. For instance, the healthcare industry...

When Executive Order 14028, “Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity,” was issued in May 2021, it included directives for agencies to establish several incident response and logging procedures, including sharing information on incident detection and response, by August 2023. In August of that year, the Office of Management and Budget issued Memorandum 21-31 setting specific requirements for agencies to meet, for which the Cybers...

The state of New York and many of its cities are aggressively pursuing a strategic overhaul of the delivery of services to residents. For instance, the state’s 2022-23 IT strategic plan emphasizes improving IT resiliency in part by getting away from legacy systems, implementing an enterprise architecture, and improving demand management and service delivery, to name a few. The state recently unveiled its new statewide cybersecurity strat...

Florida is the third-largest state in the U.S. by population, and it continues to grow rapidly – from 2010 to 2020, its population grew by 14.5%. That kind of growth rate might be the envy of other states, but it also means increased pressure on the state government to deliver internet-based, user-friendly services for everything from child support services to renewing business licenses. Bringing digital transformation to the Sunshine St...

Mobile devices are a way of life today – including for government agencies. They are ubiquitous, and many agencies have embraced a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policy that allows employees to use their own. But they have become a rapidly growing target for bad actors – so much so that BYOD could mean “bring your own danger.” For example, in February, SC Magazine reported a phishing campaign targeting the Federal Communi...

As agencies increasingly migrate their workloads to the cloud, it is crucial to understand the implications and benefits of writing natively to the cloud, which enables organizations to optimize their data protection strategies, streamline operations, and enhance overall security. “Writing natively” is about building, deploying and managing software apps in the cloud computing environment. Taking this approach makes it possible to...

Federal departments and agencies are making headway in meeting the requirements of Executive Order 14028, issued in May 2021, to strengthen their cybersecurity by implementing a zero trust architecture. To date, many agencies have made progress in areas like identity management and secure access. But the journey toward achieving a zero trust environment is different for every department. The challenges that civilian agencies must overcome are...