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. To accomplish this transformation in state governm...

Cybersecurity has always contended with evolving threats. As the internet has become more embedded into social and economic life and smart phones, tablets and other handheld devices become ubiquitous, bad actors have devised new attacks to capitalize on new vulnerabilities. And just as agencies are implementing zero trust architecture to help with this wave, other IT developments are threatening to upend cybersecurity even more. For instance,...

Government at all levels is moving as quickly as possible to integrate new solutions and overhaul processes that need streamlining. At the same time, officials are keeping close watch on AI and other emerging technologies, wary of the law of unintended consequences. For instance, in early September California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order directing state agencies to study the development, use and risks of generative artificial in...

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...

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...

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...

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...

The technology revolution that has reshaped consumer markets has now arrived at the state level. Case in point: the State of Ohio, where state, local and educational organizations are moving quickly to integrate innovative technologies that can drive better decision-making while lowering the cost of ownership for IT systems. Incorporating new technologies also creates opportunities to reimagine the future workforce, for both the public and pr...