2018 marks the 15^th year of the National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, a government/industry effort – observed every October – that works to ensure every American has the resources they need to “be safer and more secure online” and educating everyone about the roles they play in helping to safeguard the internet.

There’s a lot of buzz about blockchain these days, even in government. In fact, we predict that 2018 will be the year of blockchain in government. Blockchain’s inherent security makes it resistant to data manipulation, making it a great tool for securely recording transactions between two parties, everything from medical records, contracts, transactions, even online voting.

As government officials begin investigation of the Equifax breach that exposed the sensitive information of 143 million people, what does the breach mean for agencies themselves? After all, the U.S. government stores far more sensitive data than the private sector, and often stores it on older, more vulnerable systems.

What does privilege have to do with your agency’s security controls? The fact is that most data breaches start with privilege abuse. Think Edward Snowden. In the wake of his leaks, the NSA pledged to reduce system administrator privileges by 90%. Then there are outsiders. Most recent federal data breaches originate from attackers who exploited the login accounts of employees or contractors to gain access to sensitive data.