For
the First Time in Five Years, External Threats Overshadow Internal Threats as
the Greatest Cybersecurity Concern for the Public Sector
The growing prominence of the general hacking community and foreign
government-led cyberattacks is forcing the public sector to re-evaluate its
security posture
SolarWinds, a leading provider of simple,
powerful, and secure IT management software, today announced the findings of
its seventh Public Sector Cybersecurity Survey
Report. This survey includes responses
from 400 IT operations and security decision makers, including 200 federal, 100
state and local, and 100 education respondents.
“These results demonstrate that while
IT security threats have increased—primarily from the general hacking community
and foreign governments—the ability to detect and remediate such threats has
not increased at the same rate, leaving public sector organizations
vulnerable,” said Brandon Shopp, Group Vice President, Product Strategy, SolarWinds.
“But the data also shows an increased awareness and adoption of zero trust, as
well as a commitment to invest in IT solutions and adopt cybersecurity best
practices outlined in the Administration’s Cybersecurity Executive Order. It’s
through these steps that public sector organizations can enhance their
cybersecurity posture and fight the rising tide of external threats.”
2021 Key Findings:
- The general hacking community (56%) is the largest
source of security threats at public sector organizations, followed closely by
careless/untrained insiders (52%) and foreign governments (47%). For the first
time in five years, careless insiders were not listed as the top security
threat.
- State
and local governments (63%) are significantly more likely than other public
sector groups to be concerned about the threat of the general hacking
community.
- Federal
civilian agency respondents (58%) are more likely to indicate careless insiders
as a threat compared to the defense community (41%).
- Cybersecurity threats from foreign governments
(56%) are responsible for the greatest increase in concern among public sector
respondents.
- Defense
respondents (68%) are the most likely to note foreign governments as a
cybersecurity threat, compared to civilian (53%), state and local government
(46%), and education (25%) respondents.
- When asked about specific types of security
breaches, the public sector’s level of concern over ransomware (66%), malware
(65%), and phishing (63%) has increased the most over the last year.
- Time to detection and resolution have not improved
at the rate of increased IT security threats and breach concerns.
- About
60% of respondents noted both the time to detection and time to resolution
remained the same or worsened between 2020 and 2021.
- Lack of training (40%), low budgets and resources
(37%), and the expanded perimeter (32%) as a result of increased remote work
continue to plague public sector security pros.
- Respondents
also pointed to insufficient data collection and monitoring as a key impediment
to threat detection (31%).
- State
government respondents (50%) indicate more so than local governments (25%) that
budget constraints are an obstacle to maintaining or improving IT security.
- Education
respondents are the most likely to struggle to identify the root cause of
security issues, hampering their ability to both detect and remediate such
threats.
- Public sector respondents suggest improving
investigative and remediation capabilities, as well as reducing barriers to
sharing threat information between public and private sectors, as the top
priorities for compliance with the Cybersecurity Executive Order.
- Among
SLED organizations, 86% are likely to adopt cybersecurity best practices and
activities from the Cybersecurity Executive Order, including almost 100% of
respondents from K-12 schools.
- More than 75% of public sector respondents note
their organizations rely on a formal or informal zero-trust approach.
- A
majority of public sector respondents are familiar with the principle of least
privilege (PoLP), and 70% of respondents are either already implementing PoLP
or will implement PoLP within the next 12 months.
- The majority of public sector respondents realize
the importance of IT security solutions and prioritize their investments highly
in the next 12 months, with network security software (77%) being the top
priority.
- IT
modernization investment priority leans toward replacing legacy applications
(60%) and migrating systems to the cloud (60%).
- When
it comes to customer experience, IT services management (59%) holds investment
priority. And for digital transformation, implementing stakeholder platforms
and portals (57%) is key.
“Public sector organizations are
increasingly concerned about the threats from foreign governments,” said Tim
Brown, CISO and Vice President of Security, SolarWinds. “In looking at the
survey data, it’s encouraging that a majority of the public sector is actively
seeking to follow the roadmap outlined in the Administration’s Cybersecurity
Executive Order, including enhanced data sharing between public and private
sectors. This is a key pillar of the SolarWinds Secure by Design approach,
which encourages government and industry to present a united front against
criminals and foreign cyberactors.”
Supporting Quotes:
“Remote access is improving and will
continue to be a priority.” - Defense / Military
“The main difficulty is in finding
and hiring qualified IT employees and then retaining them.”- Federal Civilian
“If you and your customers are based
in the United States, reshoring can help alleviate some of the supply chain
unknowns. The looming question is how many supply chain unknowns will remain
unknown?” - Defense / Military
Source: SolarWinds media announcement
