As government organizations embrace digital transformation, they’ve become an increasingly attractive target for various cyber threats. Threats have become highly sophisticated and persistent in their intent to compromise sensitive data, disrupt operations and undermine national security. In this article, we’ll delve into the rapidly evolving threat landscape, highlighting the most common vulnerabilities that government entities face. We’ll also examine cybersecurity for government, focusing on modern strategies government entities can implement to strengthen their defenses, protecting the safety of critical resources.
Common government cybersecurity vulnerabilities
Vulnerabilities accompanying digital modernization can be exploited, causing significant disruptions to citizen services. Here are six vulnerabilities governments must address.
Legacy systems, software and infrastructure
The pace of government modernization has not been even; some government entities still rely on legacy hardware, software or systems that weren’t designed with modern cybersecurity in mind. This aging infrastructure is more susceptible to compromise.
Improperly secured IoT devices and smart infrastructure
Internet of Things (IoT) devices present a unique set of risks to cybersecurity for government. Designed for data sharing and always-on connectivity, IoT devices are tempting targets for hackers. These devices and other smart city technologies create a heightened risk because a weakness in one component can provide a point of entry to launch a broader exploitation.
Unsecured third-party connections
Governments don’t operate in a vacuum. They partner with external vendors, contractors and other service providers. Lax cybersecurity standards of one of these partners can leave government entities vulnerable to attack. By compromising the integrity and security of third-party systems, cyberattackers can use their foothold to gain entry to government systems.
Inadequate data security and governance
Government entities collect massive amounts of sensitive data. Poor data security and governance controls leave that data open to compromise. When that data becomes lost or stolen, consequences can include dangers to public safety, and citizens may lose faith in the government’s ability to protect the information it has been entrusted with.
Insider threats
Malicious insiders pose a significant cybersecurity threat to government entities. Motivated by spite or greed, these individuals can use their access to delete, corrupt or steal sensitive data. Insider threats aren’t always disgruntled employees with access to sensitive information—they can also be well-intentioned employees who click on a phishing link or are careless with protecting their credentials.
Lack of employee security training
Cybersecurity awareness training significantly reduces human errors and inadvertent security lapses that create unnecessary risks. With proper training, employees are less likely to fall victim to a phishing attack, practice poor password protection or improperly handle sensitive data.
Modernizing cybersecurity for government
As governments replace their aging digital infrastructure and systems with modern solutions, developing a robust cybersecurity program to secure it is crucial. Central to this effort is the modern cloud data platform, a cloud-native solution essential in strengthening cybersecurity for government entities. Here are five examples of how the modern cloud data platform is helping governments secure their digital assets and protect their data.
Security data lake
Strengthening cybersecurity for government entities begins with bringing all security-relevant data together into one place. Built atop the modern cloud data platform, the security data lake acts as a single source of truth, combining security data with contextual data sources such as identity and access management (IAM) systems and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. By eliminating data silos, the security data lake eradicates blind spots.
Elastic data storage and compute resources
Modern cybersecurity solutions require significant computing and data storage resources. Supporting a near-limitless number of concurrent users, the modern cloud data platform allows cybersecurity teams to complete their work without running into resource contention issues. Modern data platforms offer low-cost cloud data storage, providing a cost-effective means for storing data for longer periods of time so government entities can increase the effectiveness of threat-hunting and incident investigations.
AI-enabled security analytics
Artificial intelligence (AI) can enhance the effectiveness of these security analytics tools, facilitating identification of complex patterns and difficult-to-detect anomalies that may indicate the presence of a cyber threat. Behavioral analytics is a prime example. AI can establish baselines of typical user and system behavior and then spot deviations that indicate a potential security incident, such as an insider threat or zero-day attack.
Dynamically updated threat intelligence
Receiving updated threat intelligence from third-party sources enriches the data governments use for their security analysis. This dynamically updated information ensures cybersecurity teams keep current on emerging and recently discovered threats. Popular sources for threat intelligence include the Department of Homeland Security’s Automated Indicator Sharing (AIS) and security data purchased from a third-party data marketplace.
Comprehensive data security safeguards
Advanced data security features and data governance capabilities help government organizations know exactly what data they have and how to protect that data. Capabilities such as object tagging, classification and tag-based masking enable users to automatically detect and classify sensitive data within the platform. Dynamic data masking allows columns with sensitive data, such as Social Security numbers, to be fully or partially hidden to unauthorized users but authorized users can see them in plain text. To ensure adequate security safeguards are in place, look for compliance certifications that indicate technology meets U.S. federal and state government standards, such as Federal Risk & Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) authorization, ITAR, SOC 1 Type II, SOC 2 Type II, PCI DSS, StateRAMP and HITRUST compliance certifications.
Cybersecurity for government starts with Snowflake
Snowflake was designed with robust security baked in. Snowflake actively partners with government agencies and the industrial and academic sectors that support them to prevent global cybercrimes. For this reason, Snowflake exceeds relevant standards such as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and others. With the Snowflake, governments unlock powerful analytics, accelerate threat detection efforts and enable speedy incident investigations. Snowflake users benefit from rapidly scalable, on-demand compute and storage resources, robust internal data security and governance controls and seamless access to a network of cybersecurity partners that provide governments with the tools to create formidable defenses against cyberattacks.