Government agencies have remained a lucrative target for cybercriminals as they hold copious amounts of sensitive information from citizens and other organizations. Over the past few years, government systems have become closely interwoven with a variety of platforms, bringing together all sensitive data under a single roof. This has caused hackers and malicious actors to go beyond their ways to launch targeted attacks on government systems to perform mass exfiltration of sensitive data for extortion or financial gain.
Local government institutions like city councils and counties grapple with the aftermath of security breaches much frequently than bigger organizations. Implementing sound credential management and access control governance can help government organizations mitigate security risks and demonstrate compliance with various regulations. Failing to adhere to these mandates not only increases the risk of cyberattacks but also results in heavy penalties and other serious legal and reputational ramifications.
The wealth of sensitive information contained by the government sector constantly attracts the attention of cybercriminals. Moreover, government agencies themselves deal with multiple operational challenges and limitations when trying to enforce data security. Here are some common challenges faced by government institutions in their journey to building a resilient cybersecurity strategy.
Public sector organizations are a critical infrastructure providing important citizen services that are data dependent. Due to this reason, they have become frequent targets for malware and ransomware attacks in the recent times. A recent survey states that cyberattacks targeting government agencies have gone up by 40% in the last half on 2023. Malicious actors often initially compromise one endpoint and install malware, and then slowly expand their foothold by elevating privileges and gaining access to mission-critical systems. In ransomware attacks, sensitive data is exfiltrated and encrypted and forces victims to pay a ransom in exchange for re-entry. Public sector organizations struggle to reverse the consequences of malware and ransomware as important services are disrupted, especially during times of emergency.
Public sector agencies have stuck with legacy IT systems for a long while and still continue to do so amidst the face of rapid digital transformation. Migrating huge amounts of sensitive data to modern systems is time-consuming and requires careful planning. Legacy systems introduce a plethora of cybersecurity risks to public sector agencies. Moreover, these systems operate in a stand-alone fashion, giving rise to mounds of data silos. Subsuming all the scattered sensitive data into a centralized security framework proves to be huge challenge for the government agencies.
Public sector organizations heavily rely on supply chains and third-party vendors to deliver citizen services. This increased dependency of third-party suppliers introduces a significant cybersecurity risk – supply chain attacks. As was the case with the notorious SolarWinds attack, cybercriminals exploit the weak links in the organization’s trusted supply chain to infiltrate into the main network. From thereon, they firm their foothold and escalate their privileges to gain access to mission-critical information. Supply chain attacks are very difficult to detect and incorporating strong vendor access controls is crucial to safeguard organizations from weak links in their supply chain.
The public sector landscape demands federal, state, and local government agencies to comply with a myriad of regulations. Disregard to compliance regulations can result in costly consequences like lawful penalties, security breaches, and sometimes even shutting down of the organization. Some regulations that government agencies need to comply with include: NIST, FISMA, DFARS, FedRAMP, DHS – CDM Program, NERC CIP, PCI DSS. The major challenges for government agencies in their compliance journey is the inability to gather data and manage programs. Futhermore, different wings of a government organization operate with different technologies and processes and there’s a lack of ability to modify and scale according to administrative requirements.
IT staffing shortages persist across all levels of government, with cybersecurity gaps topping the list of workforce challenges. Federal, state, and local government agencies are grappling with these gaps with varying degrees of urgency. Government organizations are increasingly outsourcing their operations to managed service providers (MSPs) and managed security service providers (MSSPs) to fill this cybersecurity talent gap. However, it comes with its own set of risks. Another solution to this understaffing problem could be to rely on solutions that can be self-hosted or those that ensure a smooth implementation process with minimal vendor intervention.
2 out of 5 organizations today rely on excel sheets to store their administrative credentials. Storing the keys to your company's most sensitive asset without encryption or multi-factor authentication is a reckless practice. Government agencies struggle with migration to enterprise password managers due to reasons like resistance to change, buy-in friction from the upper management and so on. An enterprise password manager that facilitates smooth transition from excel sheets, while providing strong vaulting and access control mechanisms can strike the right balance between security and productivity.
Telework adoption has gained momentum since COVID-19 and government agencies are dealing with workforce across departments operating from remote locations. Furthermore, government agencies also rely on multiple third-party vendors to deliver their services, who might be accessing internal data from remote locations. Remote access points and shadow IT carry heightened risks. Some agencies resort to BYOD as it’s the only viable option in times of emergency, but personal devices lack server hardening and security administration and is capable of putting the agency data at risk.
Government agencies are often subjected to IT budget cuts, especially during times of crises and financially unstable situations. The costs associated with securing sensitive citizen data, intellectual property, and the technical costs associated with risk mitigation are generally high. Moreover, the use of legacy systems and disjointed solutions to cater to various cybersecurity requirements makes it challenging for public sector agencies to cope with stagnant cybersecurity budgets. Prioritizing what risks they are willing to accept, investing in automation, and replacing silo-ed security programs with tightly braided holistic solutions can help combat budget challenges to an extent.
Protect citizen data and other sensitive information with Securden Unified PAM.
Securden Unified PAM helps government agencies implement all necessary access security controls in a single package. It centralizes the management of privileged account credentials and protects privileged access across physical, virtual, and cloud environments. It enforces fine-grained access controls with robust auditing and reporting capabilities. With over 80 per cent of cyberattacks involving privileged access, Securden offers a holistic security solution for government agencies.
Holistically govern privileged access entitlements across diverse IT infrastructure and geographical locations. Enforce strong access control mechanisms and make sure users and third-party contractors always retain minimum privileges commensurate with what their job roles entail.
Discover and store sensitive credentials across your organization in a central inventory with strong encryption. Enforce password management best practices including periodic rotation, policy-based complexity requirements, granular approval workflows for password sharing and so on.
MSPs need to help their clients achieve compliance by satisfying industry regulations. Securden Password Vault for Enterprises can help clients by providing comprehensive reports on which technicians accessed what client passwords and what actions they took with them. Demonstrate compliance with regulations like HIPAA, NIST, GDPR, NIS 2.0, and FINRA.
Enable users launch one-click connection to remote privileged systems without revealing credentials. Monitor and record sessions in real-time and terminate access if any anomalous activity is suspected.
Grant just-in-time privileged access to IT resources with request-release controls, time-limited access, and session monitoring. Automatically revoke access once the stipulated time ends.
Mitigate security risks associated with vendor access to privileged systems within your network. Record their access events and send SNMP traps and syslog messages to SIEM solutions for deeper correlation.
Centralize the management and access of legacy software solutions. Onboard legacy applications seamlessly, implement remote access for legacy solutions and enforce security best practices.
Track and record all privileged access within the organization as tamper-proof audit trails. Generate in-depth out-of-the-box and custom reports that come in handy during compliance audits and inspection.
Deploy the PAM solution in minutes, implement it in days and move to production in a couple of weeks. Seamlessly integrate with enterprise IT infrastructure, including directories, MFA mechanisms, SSO solutions, SIEM tools, ITSM solutions, and more. Achieve deeper correlation of privileged access data with overall network data facilitating actionable insights and quicker remedies.
Meet the requirements of IT regulations (NIST, CSIP, HSPD12, NISP, CDM, NERC-CIP, and more) and generate audit-ready reports demonstrating compliance.
