Events on the world stage are also playing out in cyberspace. Nation-states continue their kinetic wars into internet realms, commit crimes such as financial and intellectual property theft, and pursue their global strategic goals hidden from view. Ransomware attacks are increasing again. It’s a tough time for cybersecurity professionals. “We’re seeing attackers cause bigger impacts with less skills. They’re also more b...

The cybersecurity slogan for zero trust is a simple one: Never trust, always verify. This slogan fits into the Department of Defense mindset, which is always focused on how to reduce risk, but it’s a challenge to apply it to the federal government’s largest agency. An important tool in pursuing zero trust is to implement microsegmentation – partitioning a network into small, isolated sections to reduce the attack surface in e...

The federal government has been proactive in continuity of operations (COOP ) planning since at least the 1950s, when President Eisenhower issued executive orders directing various measures agencies should take to be prepared for a possible nuclear war. The need for COOP leads naturally to the question of resilience – how quickly agencies can recover from events beyond their control. Climate change is a slow-moving tsunami of many smalle...

Many government agencies wrestle with their legacy systems and outdated processes every day, especially when it comes to cybersecurity and data flow. Agencies usually have multiple servers, private or hybrid clouds, and thousands of end points, from desktop computers to smart phones, tablets to sensors, generating millions of bits of data. An army of data analysts wouldn’t be able to keep up with the volume of logs being generated (and n...

It is hard to believe that ChatGPT isn’t even a year old yet, when you look at the tidal wave of new apps that have been released in its wake. After decades where the phrase “artificial intelligence” was sufficient, commentary in the public sphere has already moved to the next level – generative AI. What’s the difference? As Forbes describes it, “Traditional AI systems are primarily used to analyze data and...

Cybersecurity is akin to the 20th century Cold War. On the one hand, bad actors – whether nation-states or common criminals – are constantly searching for new vulnerabilities and creating new tools to attack them. On the other, all government agencies and private sector companies are trying to remain alert and find new ways to fend off those attacks. Among the innovative ways agencies are responding to the ever-evolving threat land...

Ever since the dawn of the internet, its value lies in the data it handles, whether moving it, storing it, or calculating with it. As a result, just as Willie Horton once said he robbed banks because “that’s where the money is,” many of today’s cyber bad actors target agencies’ data because they can monetize it. Even hostile nation-states such as North Korea seek U.S. and state agencies’ data because they ne...

We all now live in a data-driven world. And the federal government may be the single largest generator – and user – of data in the world. According to Digital.gov, “Every day, thousands of federal workers collect, create, analyze, and distribute massive amounts of data from weather forecasts to economic indicators to health statistics. Federal government data is a major driver of the American economy as businesses use the dat...

Advances in telecommunications capabilities are a major driver in Department of Defense programs. From creating secure private networks that U.S. military forces and their partners can use in conflicts to integrating 5G capabilities to create “smart” warehouses to significant improvements in supply chain logistics, DoD has been committed to investing in rethinking the meaning and applications of communications. One of the next step...

It has been almost seven years since the White House issued Presidential Policy Directive 40, setting out the federal continuity policy “to maintain a comprehensive and effective continuity capability through Continuity of Operations (COOP), Continuity of Government (COG), and Enduring Constitutional Government (ECG) programs, ensuring the resilience and preservation of government structure under the United States Constitution and the co...