A Blueprint for Resilience

Unified focus on crisis and risk management

Shielding mission-critical government information systems from future threats largely relies on the maturity of the risk management posture that’s in place. Risk management, unlike being a part of a compliance exercise, now requires a unified, consistent, and a disciplined approach across all departments. Different government functions or communities have a distinct response mechanism, which corresponds to their respective risk appetite, all of which should be well documented for continuous monitoring and long-term planning.

• Uncoordinated efforts and lack of collaboration between departments.
• Delay in the restoration of critical services and infrastructure during a crisis.
• Frequently being targeted by state-sponsored threat actors.
• Damaged national or international reputation.
• Loss of public trust and increased feeling of helplessness among citizens.

• Increase collaboration and promote information sharing to frame a counter-measure and incident response framework.
• Standardize and centralize risk assessment frameworks across various functions and verticals.
• Dedicate an agency or committee for overseeing and coordinating government-wide crisis and risk management efforts.
• Embed risk management principles within all government departments

• Invest in automation and secure company-wide endpoints to strengthen cyber defences.
• Define standards and protocols for breach preparedness, response, and recovery.
• Conduct regular assessments of government-wide preparedness and identify areas for improvement via cyber drills.
• Utilize SIEM tools to aggregate data from various security sources, for centralized monitoring, threat detection, and faster incident response.
• Prioritize securing your critical cloud infrastructure

Strategic coordination within various folds of the government

Various departments and hierarchy of Government agencies often tend to operate in silos. This leads to limited communication and collaboration, which eventually yields inefficiencies, duplication of efforts, and most importantly--missed opportunities. Just like how collaboration between emergency management, public health, and infrastructure agencies is crucial for disaster response, promoting strategic coordination and planning can help governments break down silos, work together towards shared goals, and ultimately, better serve the public.

• Zero to minimal trickle down from central departments to grassroots organizations, leading to restricted knowledge sharing.
• Having a siloed approach can prevent the government from finding creative solutions to complex problems.
• Fragmented service delivery leading to a complex and frustrating citizen experience.

• Organize joint training sessions and workshops that involve personnel from different departments.
• Establish clear, standardized communication protocols and, if needed--escalation procedures to ensure timely and efficient information exchange between levels.

• Encourage collaboration and information sharing by consolidating cyber expertise and resources across departments. One way to do this is to leverage central knowledge hubs (government or commercial) to support cross-teams lacking in-house security capabilities against common threats.
• Train teams across the public and private sectors (ecosystem partners) on coordinated cyber incident response combined with practice drills to enhance your collective ability to withstand cyberattacks, thereby improving resiliency.

Supply Chain immunity via governance

Your supply chain is not built overnight. It’s a network that’s built across a span of time, which cannot sustain itself in the long term without adequate governance in place. By implementing strong governance measures, federal/public entities can build a more nimble supply chain ecosystem that can respond to any calamity and emergency. An effective governance empowers leaders, grants them more accountability to ensure resources and services reach its end users--their citizens.

• Delayed response to natural disasters leading to heightened loss of lives and damage in infrastructure.
• Overwhelmed critical public information systems.
• Disruption of key government functions and operations
• Lack of oversight and limited visibility

• Pick the right governance play-book:
• Trust-building is the secret to a stronger network:
• Identify key roles and accountable entities before the alarm blares:
• Strengthen individual entities with drills and joint exercises while focusing on overall improvement.
• Limit disputes while embracing differences:

• Deploy an adequate change management system in place
• Adopt Zero Trust Frameworks by assuming that network is always at risk to internal and external threats.
• Assess and mitigate security risks associated with software and hardware vendors.
• Establish policies, define roles and responsibilities for all stakeholders involved in IT procurement and use, including government agencies, vendors, and third-party providers.

Ensure compliance management is not cumbersome

Government agencies are accountable for maintaining citizen data, public records, infrastructure, and sensitive data, which are crucial to national security. A robust governance and compliance ensures data protection, especially against hacktivists and state actors. Instead of seeing compliance as a mere checklist item or a hindrance to productivity, it is important to build a culture around it through awareness and proactive risk management.

• The only thing worse than lack of compliance is superficial compliance--arising due to complacency resulting from overlooking crucial aspects of regulations.
• Employees may end up viewing compliance as a bureaucratic hurdle rather than a long-term responsibility.
• Compliance gaps can result in inadvertent violations unbeknown to the organization, leaving them vulnerable to attacks that exploit these gaps.

• Take efforts to break down complex compliance topics into clear, concise, and easy-to-understand policies and procedures that is accessible to all employees.
• Integrate compliance in daily workflows by imparting mandatory assessments, quizzes, and performance reviews. Appoint a compliance champion in every department who can act as a resource and answer questions from colleagues.
• Cultivating a strong sense of leadership is crucial to building a culture of compliance so that its importance is highlighted consistently in the long run.

• Establish adequate baselines for critical infrastructure and plug holes in mandates and regulatory frameworks.
• Develop security awareness training based on real-world scenarios, data protection best practices and simulations that go beyond compliance checklists.
• Free up or supplement IT staff by implementing automated tools for vulnerability assessments, configuration management, and reporting to streamline compliance mandates.

Improved communication and public participation

Citizen participation is important to ensure the successful delivery of government policies and outcomes. This strengthens trust and vastly improves service delivery, especially the ones in need. Tightly-knit government-public interactions open up access and representation to all segments of the public, allowing them to work with the government, rather than against them. By allowing different voices with dissimilar needs to take part, governments across the world can adopt an outcome-oriented approach instead of being activity-based.

• Policy-makers from the public sector may tend to overlook crucial perspectives from the people affected by those policies.
• Apart from the misalignment and lack of representation, such policies can not only be impractical and ineffective, but also can harm certain segments of the population.
• Lack of communication and public participation can become a breeding ground for misinformation and distrust, fueling social divisions and making it harder to solve complex issues requiring broad cooperation. For instance, a new data collection drive aimed at improving public transportation may overlook privacy concerns raised by citizens, leading to a public outcry instead of public well-being.

• Encourage public participation in all phases of policymaking—from planning and response to recovery.
• Ensure participation from all segments of the citizen community with an impetus on creating equal opportunities while giving a feel that everyone is heard.
• Double down on transparency by developing specialized communication strategies to disseminate all sides of policy instead of promoting a singular narrative.

• Advocate for and be instrumental in the development of secure online citizen portals and platforms meant for public engagement, such as online forums, surveys, or feedback collection platforms. Collaborate with IT development teams to ensure user-friendliness, accessibility, and strong security for mission-critical government apps and websites.
• Conduct proactive campaigns to shed light on the government’s efforts to tackle cybersecurity and protect citizen data thereby building trust and empowering citizens to value privacy, enabling to protect themselves online.
• Plan public hackathons/bug bounty programs to motivate and incentivize citizen participation in identifying vulnerabilities.

Facilitate innovation and accelerate problem solving

If the global pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that large scale shocks and setbacks don’t exempt governments from preparing ahead and acting based on official priorities. In an uncertain world, resilience is key, and the only way forward is to modernize your organization by creating a framework that continuously innovates and improves processes from the inside.

• Lack of adaptability to change, gradually resulting in inability to address critical public issues.
• Government services may become irrelevant to the needs of citizens, leading to public dissatisfaction and reduced trust.
• Failure to innovate can lead to government agencies struggling to collaborate or compete with private sector organizations that are far more agile and open to innovation.

• Prioritize end-user satisfaction by adopting agile methods for service delivery and making it citizen-centred rather than being an administrative exercise.
• Track and reward innovation by measuring the impact of new ideas and approaches on various levels of organization, culture, and the community. This in turn, provides a framework and an opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of innovative solutions.

• Complement your IT security with proactive threat detection, attack surface visibility, and automated patch application with improved thrust on early threat identification and neutralisation.
• Invest in DLP solutions to prevent sensitive data from being accidentally or maliciously exfiltrated from government devices.

Rethink resource allocation and invest in workforce upskilling

Protecting critical infrastructure, sensitive data, and citizen information require a two-pronged approach: investing in the right tools and hiring the best talent. However, with limited budgets and a competitive job market, the government sector, especially the IT department, is compelled to improvise and innovate.

• Inability of government bodies to impart basic services and critical response to incidents owing to the lack of resources or a resource allocation system.
• Financial costs and operational disruptions can tarnish the reputation and lead to public distrust. For example, negative Media Coverage due to high-profile ransomware attacks can damage the government's reputation and make it a target for future attacks.

• Upskill and reskill your employee base while re-evaluating the barriers to entry into the workforce, such as establishing a baseline skillset and expanding apprenticeship programs.
• Take measures to acknowledge the importance of physical and mental health, especially those of ground staff and first responders.
• Identify core competencies of employees and create flexible teams that can be scaled during critical missions.

• Prioritize needs by conducting a thorough risk assessment to identify the government's most critical vulnerabilities and possible areas for improvement. Allocate resources towards tools that address these specific needs first.
• Bridge the skill gap and meet the cybersecurity staffing challenge from a wider talent base.
• Empower your frontline workers with the right technology--from knowledge management and privacy protection to end user experience and endpoint security.

Laying a Strong Foundation for Endpoint Security

The digital landscape for governments is fraught with uncertainty.

Evolving cyber threats, geopolitical tensions, and socio-economic shifts can pose significant shocks to national security and deter effective governance.

The same IT infrastructure that's the backbone of critical government missions is also prone to state-sponsored cyberattacks. So much to an extent that today's IT assets or endpoints that house sensitive data, access critical infrastructure, and serve as gateways to essential government services--are collectively coined as 'attack surface'. A single compromised endpoint can have a ripple effect, disrupting operations, compromising classified data, and irreversibly damaging public trust. In a world riddled with risks, endpoint security is no longer a luxury, it's an imperative.

Building a strong foundation for endpoint security requires a multi-layered approach. Apart from relying on tools to automate patching to address vulnerabilities to enforcing least privilege, government agencies must infuse a culture of security awareness among employees, empowering them to identify and report suspicious activity. Beyond technical solutions, fostering collaboration between IT and other government departments is crucial.

By prioritizing endpoint security, government IT can build cyber resilience – the ability to withstand, adapt to, and recover from cyberattacks. This translates to a more secure and dependable government, capable of delivering essential services efficiently and protecting sensitive data in the face of ever-present uncertainties.

In short, endpoint resilience equates to government resilience.