The challenges of cybersecurity in today’s volatile environment have hit state, local and educational agencies and institutions particularly hard. Their IT shops already faced manpower shortages, outdated hardware and software, threats such as ransomware, and skimpy budgets – all of which have been amplified by the pandemic and its follow-on effects. And now war in a faraway country, involving a nation-state already hostile to the U.S., raises the prospect of new threats and amplification of current ones such as ransomware.
While state and local agencies may face the same problems, there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to help them design and implement cybersecurity plans. Proven best practices, such as providing greater transparency into network activity, stronger security for remote employees, a cloud-based secure access service edge (SASE) framework to delineate the convergence of software-defined networking (SDN) and security capabilities, and using microsegmentation in SDNs to protect against threats inside the system moving laterally, all can be adapted to meet state-specific and locality-specific needs.
