Page 32 - FCW, August 2017

GUEST COLUMN
CYBERSECURITY AUTOMATION
Intelligent Automation Can Dramatically Improve Cybersecurity
Tools automate routine tasks, so federal agencies can respond more quickly and effectively to cybersecurity threats.
Kirke Everson
Government Intelligent Automation Lead
KPMG LLP
Tony Hubbard
Government Cybersecurity Lead
Furthermore, there are innocent employees who inadvertently create threats, for example, clicking on a phishing link in an e-mail.
Complicating the threat landscape is a shortfall in talent.
A search of open cybersecurity positions on job site Indeed.
com alone turned up 10,640 open positions in the U.S. The manpower shortage is only getting worse.
A recent report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office notes more than 30 percent of U.S. federal employees are eligible
to retire.
As large numbers of federal employee vacate their positions, who will take their place? And the federal government competes for personnel with the private sector, which also has significant needs. The top five U.S. firms in terms
of stock valuations—Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft—are all investing heavily in cybersecurity.
THE NEED FOR
SOMETHING NEW
The evolving threat landscape and limited resources drives the need for new approaches for protecting government data. Intelligent auto- mation, the automation of mission delivery and business processes
SPONSORED REPORT
KPMG LLP
Federal agencies have plenty to keep themselves busy these days. Mission and business requirements are expanding in size and complexity; and internal and external stakeholders are expecting more capabilities. Agencies are upgrading legacy systems to better support digital experiences, while ensuring ever-increasing data volumes remain secure, even as employees access data with an expanding variety of mobile devices.
The nature and extent of cybersecu- rity vulnerabilities also continues to expand, evidenced by the most recent ransomware attacks Petya and Wanna- Cry. Despite this challenging envi- ronment, many agency budgets have grown by meager amounts, remained stagnant, or been cut. Help is on the way. Intelligent automation has the potential to dramatically impact the federal mission, business, and cyberse- curity environment.
THE CHANGING
THREAT LANDSCAPE
Protecting information used to mean simply warding off the bad guys at the network perimeter. That traditional “castle and moat” motif no longer applies. Criminals attack systems at every point, from the network to the application to the data itself.
The profile of the modern cybercriminal has also changed dramatically. Agencies now tussle with everything from maladjusted individuals and disgruntled insiders, to organized crime groups and even malevolent foreign powers. In response, the number
of compliance laws continues to expand. For example, with the NIST SP 800 171 requirements in place, agency CIOs must ensure Department of Defense technology contractors, as well as full
time employees, keep data safe.