Technically Speaking

There is a dramatic shift underway in the federal technology landscape on a scale rarely seen more than once every decade or so. Computing environments are evolving from traditional on-premises-only to a hybrid strategy that migrates some infrastructure to the cloud, while keeping some critical systems onsite. According to SolarWinds’ IT Trends Report 2016: The Hybrid IT Evolution, which includes a survey of government IT professionals, hybrid IT will continue to be the norm for the foreseeable future.

Last year, we reviewed threat reports from numerous companies and organizations.  At the time, a couple of simple themes emerged: too many systems were unpatched, and phishing was a predominant means of intrusion.  These themes are still present a year later, but some new trends have arisen to keep them company.

NSA Use of Software Flaws for Hacking Posed Risk to Cybersecurity Recently, the Nation Security Agency’s (NSA) hacking tools were leaked to the public, exposing many vulnerabilities across the internet and putting companies at risk of data breaches. Many say that the NSA should have disclosed each vulnerability as soon as they discovered it so that they could be fixed. Software vendors like Cisco, Juniper and Fortinet are actively working with their customers to ensure that any flaws in their systems are fixed immediately.

With continued unpredictability about the annual federal appropriations process, the 2016 federal fiscal year-end busy season is likely to be as crazy as usual for federal procurement teams.

DNC Creates Cybersecurity Advisory Board Following Hack Following the WikiLeak email dump right before the Democratic National Convention (DNC), the Democratic National Committee is creating a cybersecurity advisory board consisting of four industry experts. The board will be responsible for preventing future attacks on the DNC and making sure its cybersecurity capabilities are up-to-par. The committee will also ensure that those whose data was stolen will be protected so that further information from their accounts does not get leaked.

Last year, over 420 million malware variants were discovered, over half a billion personal information records were lost to breaches and one zero-day vulnerability was discovered each week. It’s time to fight back!