The Role of Data Protection in Fortifying Government Networks and Systems

To no one’s surprise, as is the case with many businesses these days, the federal government and its IT systems are vulnerable to cyberattacks and disruption, either by nation-states and/or threat actors. The second half of 2022 saw an increase of 95% year-over-year in global cyberattacks targeting the government sector. Leading the charge and totaling 40% of reported attacks were India, the US, Indonesia, and China respectively. IT security for remote workers, the sophistication of materializing technology with rapid digitization, and reliability on older legacy systems paved the way for these heightened attacks and present serious challenges for cybersecurity and the nation as a whole. This makes modernizing those IT systems a pivotal part of America’s defense.  

For years, Federal agencies have invested time, money, and endless resources in implementing various styles of IT architectures to manage financial, mission, and operational complexities.

However, as we all know too well, modernizing any IT infrastructure can cause operational headaches when agencies try to extend the value and purpose of existing applications or relinquish the bottlenecks caused by legacy IT. Furthermore, cloud integration and/or migration can cause logistical issues if not done properly without a smooth roll-out plan. Any way you slice it, challenges will ensue.  

What will it take to build a better digital infrastructure for the Federal Government in FY23?

Since its inception, nearly 5 years ago, HYCU has been helping Federal Government agencies and departments overcome those challenges by monitoring their mission-critical applications - with less complexity and a lower total cost of ownership (TCO). These top-5 Initiatives will help pave the way for better digital infrastructure in 2023 and beyond:  

1.) Embrace the agility that comes with cloud adoption.

The ability to move workloads, applications, and databases to the cloud quickly and efficiently is key. Look to modernize your IT infrastructure with a seamless migration to the cloud and focus on the tools and resources that can and will improve your digital infrastructure and push your business miles ahead of its competition.  

2.) Protect your data, especially your backups, with the adoption of technologies that will allow them to recover from ransomware.

The narrative is clear when we talk about ransomware. It’s not a matter of “if”, but “when” you’ll be attacked. A successful attack happens every 11 seconds globally and cyber-criminals are getting smarter and more sophisticated by targeting backup environments. As the cost of data loss, downtime, and ransoms continue to rise, the stakes have never been greater to get ransomware protection right. And while you cannot fully eliminate the possibility of an attack, you can reduce the risk associated with a successful attack by choosing a dependable, secure ransomware protection solution. Even for organizations that have strong ransomware prevention and detection capabilities in place, it is imperative that they can recover from an attack should one occur. Utilizing tools such as R-Score can unlock insights into the strengths and weaknesses of your organization's ransomware preparedness.  

3.) Implement a “Zero Trust” principle.

The Zero Trust initiative is a strategy to enhance data protection, prevent ransomware attacks, and improve recovery capabilities. It is based on the principle of "never trust, always verify," which means that no user or device, whether internal or external to the organization, is automatically trusted. This is going to continue to be critical in setting up the right processes, making sure that we understand multi-factor authentication, and most importantly making sure we have a “true” recoverability process for all our data no matter where it sits.

4.) Do not leave data outside of your control. You will be inheriting risk.

Look for a solution that is architected to give you peace of mind, knowing your data is fully protected, easily recoverable, and adheres to stringent privacy laws and compliance standards. Your data is your most valuable asset, so it’s best to protect it with a secure backup solution that enables you to maintain 100% data sovereignty, manage IT and cyber resilience across all applications regardless of their location, and is built natively for multiple tenants. In addition, features such as air-gapped backups and WORM-based immutable backups are methods used to prevent data loss due to encryption or deletion.  

5.) Implement metrics that will allow you to continuously get better and monitor your recoverability in case of disaster.

Metrics such as Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) are essential in disaster recovery and business continuity planning, and help organizations determine their tolerance for downtime and data loss in the event of a disaster, cyberattack, or deletion due to human error. RTO outlines how long it will take your systems to recover in the event of downtime or data loss. RPO on the other hand, is the maximum amount of data loss a business can tolerate during a disruption. Look for a data protection solution that enables you to protect and recover business-critical data with RTO assurance and automated compliance policies so your IT teams minimize manual intervention and have peace of mind that data will be safe and recoverable when needed.  

Helping Federal agencies fortify their cybersecurity requirements and improve their security posture through secure, reliable data protection.

‍‍As we continue to solidify our value as a fully managed, fully optimized data protection and backup and recovery solution for the Federal Government, we are thrilled to announce that we have been added to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM Program-approved product list (APL).

“The DHS CDM program is just another way to help the US Government access the mission critic toolset that HYCU offers.” - Gary Kron, Vice President, US Public Sector, HYCU

The DHS CDM is a well-known Federal program with a dynamic approach to fortifying the cybersecurity of civilian Government networks and systems in close to real-time. Being added to the DHS CDM Approved Products List allows HYCU to bring resources together across private and public clouds with the goal of providing simplicity and security to the ever-changing cloud-first/cloud-smart Federal IT enterprise. Read the full release to see how.  

Simple to use, efficient, cost-effective, and cloud-ready!

That is the HYCU way! Discover for yourself how HYCU is building better digital infrastructure for the Federal Government

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