Federal agencies need to adapt and evolve continuously. Amidst escalating cyber threats, the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and zero-trust frameworks emerges as a game-changer in fortifying our national cybersecurity defenses.
But let’s be honest — many federal agencies are not yet in a position to harness AI’s full potential effectively. Agencies need practical measures and strategies to implement stronger cyber risk management. In the march towards innovation and progress, security often gets left behind — something our agencies vitally cannot afford to ignore.
A new approach to cyber risk management is needed, so that federal agencies can build a more secure digital future and achieve their missions effectively.
The Core of Effective Cyber Risk Management — If Everything Is Critical, Nothing Is
Successful cyber risk management requires a holistic approach that integrates zero-trust principles, robust cloud security strategies and a deep understanding of data and risk thresholds. Compliance should be the baseline, not the ceiling, of cybersecurity efforts. Further, understanding the risk thresholds for the data under protection and continuously measuring and adjusting these thresholds are crucial aspects of effective risk management.
For this reason, agencies should embrace the idea of a Risk Operations Center, or ROC. Manually correlating all the relevant risk signals is virtually impossible. The ROC provides a unified risk approach where asset inventories, alerts, and third-party data are combined with business context and threat intelligence to form a single-pane, real-time view of the environment that makes risk triage more straightforward and relevant to each agency’s unique situation at any point in time.
It is easy to do risk management wrong but vitally important to do it right, and the complexity of getting it right cannot be overstated. Many times, the alert fatigue that comes with every vulnerability being marked as “critical” leads to no vulnerability being treated as such. If everything is critical, nothing is. It is important to understand what truly is critical, then work to mitigate that risk. This is something the ROC helps to operationalize.
Leveraging the Power of AI to Navigate Cyber Threats and Implement Zero Trust
Throughout recent discussions within the cybersecurity community, the focus has shifted towards predictive analytics, red-teaming and threat modeling enabled by AI. This shift entails not only anticipating adversaries’ tactics but also promoting interagency collaboration and standardized practices to ensure cohesive and comprehensive security measures.
Integrating AI and zero-trust frameworks into the organizational culture is essential for creating a resilient cybersecurity posture. The zero-trust approach thoroughly vets every access request, thereby minimizing the risk of unauthorized access by malicious actors. AI can help empower zero trust by improving behavioral analytics and anomaly detection, automating threat response, dynamically adjusting access controls as needed, and more. The two make a formidable pair in the fight against cyber attackers.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) Zero Trust Maturity Model can be a helpful tool for federal agencies to use in assessing current capabilities and identifying actual needs. All elements of the zero-trust five pillars — identity, device, network, application, workload and data — must work together cohesively.
Fortifying the Future: Federal Cybersecurity as a Mission-Critical Priority
Cyber threats are poised to escalate, and public-sector leaders must shift away from mere compliance toward comprehensive risk management. This evolution involves leveraging AI, operationalizing zero trust, fortifying cloud security and addressing supply chain vulnerabilities.
For private-sector cybersecurity companies to effectively help in addressing federal cyber risk challenges, fostering strong partnerships not only with customers but with agencies, such as CISA, is vital. These collaborations can enhance data sharing and provide a more comprehensive, informed defense against emerging threats. By fostering robust public-private partnerships and continuously educating the federal workforce, the government can measure, communicate and eliminate its cyber risk more effectively to bolster its cyber resilience.
Federal cybersecurity is not just a business necessity but a mission-critical priority. It’s time we leveraged emerging technologies and forward-thinking cyber risk management strategies to outpace our adversaries.
As a cybersecurity visionary, Sumedh is passionate about making the world’s digital journey safer. His education and early experiences as a coder led him to Qualys, where he rose from engineer to president and CEO. He joined Qualys in 2003, shortly after the company’s founding. His contributions and leadership helped propel Qualys to its current success in cybersecurity. Sumedh became president and CEO in 2021. A “product fanatic and engineer at heart,” Sumedh has been instrumental in dramatically expanding the original Qualys platform’s scope, integrations, and automations. He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering with distinction from the University of Pune.
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