Page 39 - FCW, June/July 2021

The abrupt shift to remote work
last year sent many state and
local agencies scrambling to support employees. That meant implementing cloud, increasing virtual-private networks and adopting emerging technologies such as robotic process automation, all while trying to secure information technology infrastructures. But now that the health crisis has subsided enough to enable reopening, new security challenges are being unmasked.
device.
The solution is the adoption of zero
Blended Workplace
GameChanger
2021 is the year of the hybrid
Today’s blended workplaces, workforces and cyber threats challenge security. How can you rise to the challenge?
8 and 22, 2020, alone VPN usage in the United States increased by 124% per week. Although VPNs are encrypted by default, that doesn’t guarantee security. IT managers must inspect the network to ascertain whether something else in a home office has penetrated the work
Game Changing Technology to Meet Agency Missions
trust approach. It involves two- or multifactor authentication to validate users but also checks that the IP addresses associated with the employees are
correct and that they’re accessing the
Teleworking by the Numbers
27% amount that teleworking increased among state and local government employees (Source: Center for
State and Local Government Excellence)
64% amount of state employees report teleworking for eligible positions (Source: Center for State and Local
Government Excellence)
19%
80% to 90%
amount of employees who were remote in March 2020 (Source: Meritalk)
amount of local employees report teleworking for eligible positions (Source: Center for State and Local Government Excellence)
While 2020 was the year of the pivot, 2021 is the year of the hybrid, experts say. Workplaces, the way people work and the threat actors have all changed and none will look the same as they did before the COVID-19 pandemic. For instance, a blended workplace in which some employees come to the office while others are offsite will become the norm.
Another way that governments’ embrace of telework is changing workplaces is by removing geographic barriers. Remote work opens the possibility of hiring workers who don’t live locally. For smaller governments that can’t afford a 24-hour security operations center or retain a local cyber expert, this can be game-changing.
41% -- amount of government employees who expect to telework
an average of three days a week post- pandemic, with another 41% saying they expect to telework four or five days a week (Source: Science Applications International Corp.
But the situation has a downside, too. Most immediately, the changes drastically increase the attack surface by adding to the number of devices that are connecting remotely to networks. Between March