The principle of least privilege—How federal agencies leverage POLP to protect and secure their IT systems

This article originally appeared on Quest Software’s official blog, HERE. It may come as a surprise that for many years the concept of least privilege was foreign in a Windows network. It would not have been uncommon in the past…

3 ways federal agencies can optimize and strengthen their user authentication methods

Cloud computing services and applications have surprisingly been around since the late-1990s and have slowly been adopted across federal government agencies since then. But when COVID-19 took the world by storm in 2020, this crawling pace had to change as…

Why the federal government’s lagging MFA adoption rate poses severe cyber risks to agency networks

According to Microsoft’s Vice President of Identity Security, Alex Weinert, only 25 percent of organizations today have adopted multi-factor authentication (MFA) as part of their overall cybersecurity infrastructure. That is a shining statistic when compared to 2017’s adoption rate of…

Digital transformation driving cyber challenges – How modernization initiatives are creating risk in the public sector

2022 was an incredible year for the adoption of advanced technologies and modernization within the federal government and the U.S. military. But, while significant strides have been made in government digital transformation and modernization initiatives since the early days of…

12 Privileged Access Management best practices for federal agencies

No matter what risks a federal government agency is facing, you can draw a threat vector from that risk to a privileged account. Privileged accounts are the backbone of any operating agency, so it’s vital that these accounts are protected…

How federal government agencies can get the most out of their MFA implementation

Authentication is the new entry point into federal government networks. Most federal users know this, and more importantly, attackers know this as well. Federal agencies can no longer recommend changing passwords on a periodic basis and consider that an adequate…

9 insider threats that are impacting endpoint security

This article originally appeared on Quest Software’s official blog, HERE. Insider threats take several forms for federal government agencies. In a classic scenario, highly privileged contractors install spyware that exfiltrates sensitive data to them long after their project is complete.…

WVDEP CIO explains how digital transformation enhanced the state agency’s cybersecurity and boosted productivity

When COVID-19 reached American shores, state and local government agencies and educational organizations (SLED) had to abruptly and suddenly find a way to operate in a world with no face-to-face, in-person interaction. This forced many of them to turn to…

How multi-factor authentication is bolstering federal agencies’ cybersecurity postures

As threats to password security have increased in recent years, multi-factor authentication (MFA) has rapidly gained popularity as a method for increasing the assurance of authentication for federal government networks and applications. MFA is important, as it hardens the cybersecurity…

4 key ways to securing federal government networks

For the federal government, truly securing its IT infrastructures, networks, and systems requires embracing modern, cybersecurity frameworks and dogmas in a big way. One security architecture that government agencies are being strongly encouraged to adopt is zero trust. Zero trust…