Tag Archives: cybersecurity

Hybrid Technology: It’s Not Just for Cars, It’s in the Cloud

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As cloud gains momentum as a platform for government IT, the one-size-fits-all solution is becoming obsolete. Government organizations require unique solutions to suit their specific needs, which is why understanding the cloud platform options is the first step to making the change to the cloud. Initially, there were public clouds hosted completely off government sites by a third party (like Google or Amazon Web Services). Then came private clouds, infrastructure and networks designed as a cloud but only available to a closed loop of individuals. Private clouds are hosted on-premise by the government entity they were built for. Now, there is a third type of cloud implementation that is proving to be the most popular and most attractive to government agencies - the hybrid cloud.

Hybrid infrastructures mean that some elements are hosted in a cloud (either public or private) while others are managed on-premise. There is a connection that allows all systems to work seamlessly. This set-up alleviates security concerns and helps organizations maintain tight control over critical applications.

Additionally, a hybrid environment helps avoid vendor lock-in. As agencies found with hardware, becoming an all "one vendor" shop has drawbacks. While going with a single IT vendor can have initial cost savings and economies of scale, in the long run, agencies grew frustrated when that one vendor could not innovate quick enough or provide the support they needed. Agencies are wary of falling into the same trap with cloud providers and look to spread out their applications across several platforms. This allows them to pick the cloud infrastructure that works best for that particular IT solution. There are hybrid cloud management tools that "abstract away many of the common features offered by different cloud providers" making it easier to manage multiple clouds. Continue reading →

Insider Threat Within Government

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Whether it's an Edward Snowden situation or "simply" just someone clicking on a rogue link, insider threat is a real issue for every organization. Insider threat is defined as a malicious threat to the security of an organization and its data that comes from people within the organization, such as employees, former employees, contractors or business associates. These people have some level of legitimate access to systems and information and therefore can open an organization up to attack or a breach. One statistic estimates there is one insider threat for every 6,000 to 8,000 employees within a government agency.[Tweet "Agencies need a combination of monitoring and detection technologies. #GovEventsBlog"]

To mitigate this threat, government agencies need a combination of monitoring and detection technologies, identity management tools, process and policy reviews, forensic capabilities, and user training.  It's a complex problem to "solve" but luckily there are a number of events and resources available to help make sense of all of the issues.

We've pulled together a list of several upcoming events to help in understanding and mitigating insider threats to any agency or organization.[Tweet "Upcoming events covering insider threats to any agency or organization. #GovEventsBlog"] Continue reading →

Digital Forensics 101

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The digitization of records and processes across government increases the need for sound digital investigation tools and processes. Whether it is looking into a data breach or gathering information for litigation, organizations are spending a lot of time culling through this data to get answers to pressing issues. An IDG survey found that a vast majority of organizations conduct digital investigations on a weekly basis. These investigations range from proving regulatory compliance, security incident response (including post-event analysis), and stopping high risk employee behavior (acceptable use violations).[Tweet "A look at digital investigations with Tod Ewasko, Director of Product Mgmt. at AccessData. #GovEventsBlog"]

We sat down with Tod Ewasko, Director of Product Management at AccessData to learn more about the role of digital investigations as a part of everyday IT efforts.

Q: Who "owns" forensics? IT? Legal? HR?

A: The answer is kind of all three. Many people lump forensics in with cybersecurity, but it's really a separate entity. Yes, forensics tools are used to investigate cyber incidents, but they are not preventative. That is what you have the "hunting" tools out there for - watching firewalls and logs for anomalous behavior or activity. Once that is stopped, then the forensics tools come in to make sense of it - to see how it happened and drive the plans to make sure it does not happen again. Forensic tools look beyond the event and gather all data relevant to the systems in question.

Q: Is forensics all reactive then? Continue reading →

The Future of AI in Government

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer just a plot line for science fiction movies. The reality of AI is not walking robots threatening to take over human tasks, but instead it is being implemented in our daily lives to complement the way people work and learn. For example, known by their first names Alexa and Siri, these AI figures will soon overtake Cher and Madonna as the most famous one-named women in the world (if they haven't already). AI is also what enables the instant customer service "representative" to pop up on a website to help answer basic questions. With its commonplace use in the commercial market, AI and machine learning are making their way into agencies across government.[Tweet "AI and machine learning are making their way into agencies across government. #GovEventsBlog"]

AI is becoming a key tool to help streamline response to citizen questions as citizen (customer) service has become a top priority across all government agencies. The IRS is beginning to use chatbots to help manage the 75 million phone calls, and 500 billion website visits from taxpayers each year (a number that will likely grow with tax changes). There's also interest in how AI can improve cybersecurity posture by automating more and more cyber monitoring so that systems are responding to threats at machine speed. AI also holds the answer to many big data challenges. The speed of automated machine processing can help agencies get more value out of the massive amounts of data they own for improved service, programs, and mission achievement. Continue reading →

Eight is Great!

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This year GovEvents celebrates its eighth anniversary being the premier online resource for government and military events worldwide. GovEvents was created to provide a one-stop-shop for the government community to find the events that aid in their professional development, their organization's mission, and their business goals.

 

We're proud of the growth we've seen over the past eight years, but more importantly, we're thankful to the community that has made it possible. In that spirit, we wanted to provide our "Top 8" list of things you may not have known about GovEvents and the government events market.[Tweet "This year GovEvents celebrates its eighth anniversary . #GovEventsBlog"]

 

#8) When we launched, our team researched and posted approximately 90% of the events on the site. Today, that statistic is flipped with our members posting 90% of the events you see and the GovEvents team filling in the other 10%.

 

#7) Speaking of members, we have more than 80,000 registered members on our site driving the diversity and depth of the information our users have access to.

 

Continue reading →