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.

No sooner do you have your arms around one cybersecurity vulnerability then another surfaces. This time it’s Meltdown and Spectre, both of which can cause data leak from kernel memory. These vulnerabilities are particularly worrying since they impact practically all computers and involve multiple IT vendors including processor players Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, and ARM.

The 2017 “infrastructure report card” from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) painted a grim portrait of our nation’s bridges, transit systems, aviation, and more, scoring an overall “D” for “poor” or “at risk”. Unfortunately, not much has changed since the last report was released in 2013.

There’s been a lot of buzz about blockchain in 2017. It was only a few months ago in March 2017 that Betanews predicted that blockchain would be the buzzword that would take 2017 by storm. And it did, expanding beyond the financial community where it’s had a home for several years and breaking into other enterprise sectors.

But few foretold that blockchain would have such a hand in government digital transformation in 2017. In fact, the two go hand in hand.

What is Blockchain?

Agencies breathed a sigh of relief at the end of 2016 as they met the Managing Government Records Directive (OMB Memo M-12-18) for managing all email records in an electronic format (a big step in ensuring the accountability and transparency of the federal government).

Identity management, the process of identifying individuals in your system and controlling the access they have to certain resources, is an area of cyber security that state and local government employees have quite a bit of confidence in. Yet data shows there’s room for improvement.

Want a good idea of “what’s coming next” in federal IT? Look no further than the financial services industry.

Consider the similarities between financial firms and government agencies. Both are highly regulated and striving for greater agility and efficiency and better control of their networks and data—not to mention both are highly regulated. Meanwhile, cybersecurity remains a core necessity for organizations in both industries.

Does your organization suffer from security fatigue? They probably do. That’s according to a new study from NIST.

Common symptoms of security fatigue include updating your password with a slight variation on the last one and a “weariness or reluctance to deal with computer security.”  All of which can cause computer users to feel and act recklessly.

Data dissemination and file sharing between agencies and law enforcement authorities is a natural part of government business. But what happens when those files leave the security of domain-controlled network drives and content management systems?

Our very own Chief Cybersecurity Technologist and Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology (ICIT) fellow, Don Maclean, recently joined fellow fellows Robert Lord (Protenus), John Menkahart (Securonix), Dr. Ron Ross (NIST) and ICIT co-founder and senior fellow, Parham Eftekhari on Capitol Hill to discuss the risks and threats associated with cyber attacks on healthcare facilities.