As federal agencies accelerate efforts to meet the September 30 deadline for implementing zero-trust architectures, a more comprehensive approach to cybersecurity becomes crucial. I believe the federal directive underscores the urgency of zero-trust principles, but the complementary mechanisms of cyber recovery and resilience are equally vital. These dual imperatives — robust defense and resilient recovery — are essential for ensuring operational integrity and maintaining public trust amid increasing domestic and foreign cyber threats.
Rounding Out Zero Trust: The Imperative of Cyber Recovery
Federal agencies have traditionally focused heavily on preventing breaches; however, the sheer volume of attacks highlights a critical shortfall — prevention alone does not ensure protection or system continuity.
As agencies work to meet federal zero-trust directives, it’s time for federal agencies to take a bold step forward. Let’s shift from merely focusing on attack prevention to embracing robust cyber recovery strategies. While implementing strong firewalls and malware detection systems is fundamental, agencies must now rise to the challenge of cyber recovery by asking critical questions: Can they quickly determine the scope of an attack? Pinpoint the entry point accurately? Assess impacts on sensitive data in real-time? Most importantly, can they efficiently locate and quarantine malware to prevent reinfection?
While the traditional focus has been restoring from backups, cyber recovery time objectives have dramatically increased during attacks. Last year, 94% of IT and security leaders reported significant cyberattacks, with attackers targeting backups in 96% of cases and partially succeeding 74% of the time. This raises a critical question: How can agencies remain resilient if their backups are compromised during an attack? Agencies need robust cyber recovery plans and clear recovery time objectives to ensure preparedness.
Shifting the Focus to Cyber Recovery
Despite massive cybersecurity investments, the frequency of successful cyber incidents remains alarming. IT and security leaders observe a concerning trend: Cyberattacks increasingly target backups, often with partial success. Traditional backup methods designed more for recovering from natural disasters or less sophisticated threat environments, are inadequate against modern attacks, leading to extended recovery times.
As federal agencies grapple with the complexities of cyber recovery, a pressing question emerges: How long will the recovery process take? Establishing a cyber recovery time objective (RTO) is crucial. Agencies must automate recovery, minimize downtime, and conduct extensive peacetime testing. Effective cyber recovery necessitates thorough preparation and robust communication between IT and security operations. With attacks on the rise and increasing sophistication, a vetted and tested plan is essential to meet cyber RTOs and ensure resilience to get systems back up and running quickly.
Testing and Validating Resilience Plans
The efficacy of resilience plans hinges on rigorous testing and validation. Agencies must regularly evaluate their recovery processes with key considerations: How long will recovery take? Is there a defined cyber RTO? How are recovery processes automated to minimize downtime? Continuous testing and optimization in peacetime are critical for identifying weaknesses and reinforcing recovery protocols’ robustness.
Effective Management of Digital Identities
Digital identity management is a cornerstone of zero trust and resilience strategies. Identity and Access Management (IAM) systems are crucial to promptly identify and neutralize unauthorized access attempts. Given the complexities and scale of federal IT environments, robust IAM systems are indispensable for protecting sensitive data and ensuring that only authenticated users can access critical systems.
Aligning Backup and Recovery Strategies With Resilience Goals
Recognizing the inevitability of cyber incidents is crucial. Aligning backup and recovery strategies with overarching cyber resilience goals requires a shift from a compliance-driven mindset to a proactive approach. Modernizing legacy backup systems and ensuring their integration with emerging cybersecurity technology is essential. These platforms offer a unified view across varied environments, enhancing threat detection and response capabilities.
Proactive Data Recovery Measures Against Evolving Threats
Modernizing backup and recovery infrastructure is an ongoing necessity. Federal agencies must adopt platforms capable of managing modern threats. Integrating these with security operations tools facilitates comprehensive threat detection, mitigation, and recovery, empowering agencies to withstand even the most sophisticated cyberattacks.
Addressing Budget and Prioritization Challenges
Despite the critical need for balance, cybersecurity funding disproportionately favors attack prevention, sidelining essential recovery readiness. This prioritization must shift to acknowledge cyber resilience’s indispensable role. While compliant, legacy tools often fail under modern attack scenarios. Adequate funding and prioritization for advanced recovery systems will be crucial as agencies roll out their zero-trust architectures.
A Dual-Focused Approach to Zero-Trust Cybersecurity
In sum, the increasing sophistication of cyber threats necessitates a paradigm shift in federal cybersecurity strategies. Agencies must adopt a dual-focused approach that strengthens defenses and ensures resilient recovery mechanisms. The hallmark of robust cybersecurity is the ability to recover swiftly and with minimal disruption following an incident.
By embracing preventive and recovery measures, federal agencies can better align their cybersecurity investments with evolving threats and round out an authentic zero-trust architecture within their agencies. This balanced approach can enhance federal functions’ resilience, secure their integrity, and maintain public trust in the face of relentless cyber challenges.
Now is the moment for federal agencies to lead by example and safeguard the nation’s future in our increasingly digital world. Let’s embrace this call to action and reinforce our commitment to a secure and resilient digital government. Our national security depends on it.
Brendan MacCarthy is vice president of federal sales at cybersecurity firm Rubrik. In his role, he works with federal agencies to mitigate data risks and accelerate response times to emergent cyber threats, ensuring mission continuity. With over 20 years of federal sales and cybersecurity expertise, Brendan’s career has encompassed leadership roles at renowned technology companies such as Hyperscience, VMware Tanzu, MongoDB, FireEye Inc., Panasas, CA Technologies and NetApp.
A proud alumnus of James Madison University, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Political Science and Business, Brendan leverages his solid educational foundation and vast industry knowledge to help federal clients implement and deploy data security, backup, and recovery best practices.
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