Ponemon Institute – Cyber Risks in Federal Government| Forcepoint

Cybersecurity Risks in the Federal Government




In the latest Ponemon Institute research, “Cybersecurity Risks in the Federal Government,” sponsored by Forcepoint, Ponemon took a deeper look at the country of U.S. cybersecurity to determine whether the news headlines are simply hype or is U.S. cybersecurity really a growing problem?  Near importantly, what tin can we do to fix this?






The Ponemon Institute surveyed
615 IT and IT security practitioners
across the United States federal government, to empathize the state of security across government, identify security gaps in achieving a strong security posture and to determine steps the federal regime is taking to close these gaps.






The research confirmed that U.South. cybersecurity attacks are, in fact, a growing problem. In the past 12 months, both the book and severity of cybersecurity incidents have increased.






According to the survey:






  • 63 pct of respondents
    say the volume of cybersecurity incidents is increasing.







  • 65 per centum of respondents
    say the severity of these incidents is getting worse.







  • 54 percent of respondents
    say their agencies had a cybersecurity incident that resulted in a significant disruption to their agencies’ Information technology and agency processes in the by ii years.







  • 61 percent of respondents
    say that in order to mitigate security risks created by remote workers information technology is of import to understand human behavior.






Beyond that,
simply 15% of respondents
reported that their It security teams could detect a security incident in less than 40 days. Other agencies reported a detection time of anywhere from
41 days to more than 200.




As well concerning is the fact that almost agencies rate their power to forbid and detect a cyberattack every bit very low. But
34 per centum of respondents
rate the ability to prevent and speedily detect a cyberattack as loftier or very loftier.





What volition it have to improve U.S. Federal cybersecurity?






Despite all of the investment and cybersecurity initiatives the U.Due south government have focused on, the adversaries appear to be winning. In the current environment, agencies must rethink their cybersecurity approach.  And recently,
Biden has mandated in his
2021
Executive Order on Improving the Nation’southward Cybersecurity





that Federal agencies must adopt security all-time practices. It appears that Biden and the majority of agencies believe that advancing toward a Zero Trust architecture volition help rectify the problem. The Ponemon report constitute





83% of agencies
believe a Cypher Trust architecture is important to improving their security posture.
31% of agencies
surveyed have deployed a Zero Trust architecture and another
69% of agencies

notice their Zero Trust security compages constructive in improving their security posture.








Previously there were quite a few models and definitions for Cipher Trust that agencies take been working toward implementing.  However, the EO suggests that agencies should “incorporate, equally advisable, migration steps that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)…has outlined in standards and guidance.”










This may help to provide a standard definition and framework upon which agencies can and should build. And the good news is the majority of agencies indicated in the Ponemon study that they are relying on the NIST 800-207 Zero Trust architecture as they build out their Zip Trust solutions. While those are positive developments, the survey showed that many agencies are using multiple models to execute confronting their Zippo Trust plans:








61% of agencies
surveyed likewise suggested agreement homo behavior is important to proactively detect risks and secure data and human behavior.  This aligns with the NIST Cypher Trust tenet that states, “Access to resources is determined past dynamic policy—including the observable land







of customer identity, application/service, and the requesting asset—and may include






other behavioral and environmental attributes.”





Download the total report to observe more details on the specific threats agencies are seeing and for visibility into other approaches and technologies agencies are adopting to move left of breach and stay alee of adversaries.


Source: https://www.forcepoint.com/blog/insights/ponemon-institute-federal-cybersecurity-report

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