Anticipating Emerging Cybersecurity Threats for the Public Sector
Armis looks at the trends and technologies that the public sector already has in place that can help shape the future of their cybersecurity programs.
As state, local government and educational institutions (SLED) better understand the necessary security milestones within their industries, they act as steppingstones in the more extensive cybersecurity journey everyone is going through. The threat landscape is rapidly evolving, and it is critical to have these conversations today. Looking back at the progress made and how capital expense funding has increased at the federal, state, and local levels, Armis anticipates some positive trends in the year to come.
Built for State and Local Government
Armis empowers state and local governments to achieve cyber resilience using Asset Exposure Management. The Armis Centrix™ platform is FedRAMP Authorized and allows agencies of all sizes to protect scattered assets and reduce technical debt. The agentless platform also provides quick time-to-value for strapped IT teams with 100’s of integrations to your existing technology vendors.
**NEWCOM shares Armis CTO Michael Bimonte’s 2024 Cybersecurity Predictions for State and Local Agencies and Educational Institutions (SLED).
The Challenge
Visibility and Modernization Across Agencies
Legacy, siloed security solutions have prevented government entities from achieving complete visibility across their network and restricted transparency and accountability amongst internal agencies.
Critical Infrastructure Disruptions
Mission-critical services, including Transportation Systems, Energy, Nuclear, Waste, and Water and Wastewater, are under nation-state attacks fueled by Artificial Intelligence. Traditional security tools cannot monitor industrial control systems (ICS) and operational technology (OT) since ICS/OT assets cannot accommodate security agents – requiring new security tactics.
Election Security
Attempts to influence or interfere with election security often start with exploiting election infrastructure, such as voter registration databases, election management systems, and voting machines – all requiring visibility before, during, and after an election.
Top 5 predictions for what next year holds for cybersecurity for SLED
1. Increased emphasis on adopting whole-of-state cybersecurity strategies
This strategy aims to improve defenses at entry level of state and local government by breaking down governmental silos and encouraging agencies to share cybersecurity resources and information to improve their collective cybersecurity posture. In the year ahead, Armis Experts expect to see this framework, where SLED institutions will adopt theories across the entire ecosystem.
2. Modernizing tech stacks and cybersecurity programs
SLED organizations are working on developing an understanding of the inherent risk of old-fashioned approaches to security and IT and the potential advantages of new technology, including cloud infrastructure. In 2024, Armis Experts expect these entities beginning to modernize and digitally transform their IT stack and cybersecurity platforms with the help of increased funding. This also includes taking on Zero Trust philosophies, where these entities have struggled to understand. By implementing Zero Trust, which federal agencies have already begun using, public sector IT and security professionals will keep security best practices top of mind by undertaking projects such as segmenting their network to protect mission-critical systems.
3. AI driven technologies will be essential to IT and security professionals’ solution stacks
AI is a tremendous technological advancement but can also be a double-edged sword. While it enables attackers with more capabilities, it is also public sector IT and security professionals the ability to defend their organizations and to improve managing their expanded attack surface. With AI solutions that place risk-based alerts on top, organizations can use AI to proactively secure all assets, remediate vulnerabilities, and block threats.
4. More states and local entities will adopt FedRamp-inspired programs to improve agency security postures
The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP®) provides a standardized approach to security authorizations for Cloud Service Offerings. With security top-of-mind across SLED, Armis Experts believe more states will start to adopt StateRamp or similar programs seen on the federal level.
5. Securing critical infrastructure – most critical priorities across all public sector entities
Security and IT professionals must increase defenses around the critical infrastructure our country is so deeply dependent on. This requires an all-hands approach across the public sector. Now more than ever, with the election year ahead, bad actors could seek to cause chaos or disturbances to the electoral process and increase doubt regarding election security.
Why contact NEWCOM?
NEWCOM is a valued, trusted partner of ARMIS software, unified asset visibility, and security platform that is designed to address the new threat landscape that connected devices create. NEWCOM is trained and certified to answer ARMIS questions and provide solutions tailored to your IT and OT technology needs. Based in the metropolitan Boston area with operations nationwide, our expert team of engineers and trained sales professionals offer turnkey solutions for commercial and public sector markets. We analyze, design, recommend, install, and help manage your systems by raising the bar for the highest standards for customer support. To learn more, visit newcomglobal.com.
About Armis
Armis is the leading unified asset visibility and security platform designed to address the new threat landscape that connected devices create. Fortune 1000 companies trust our real-time and continuous protection to see with full context all managed, unmanaged, and IoT devices, including medical devices (IoMT), operational technology (OT), and industrial control systems (ICS). Armis provides passive and unparalleled cybersecurity asset management, risk management, and automated enforcement. Armis is a privately held company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. Armis®️
