Meeting the Security Needs of the Government at GTRA Summit
Hearing straight from the horse’s mouth is always preferred to speculating on what a target audience may or may not be focused on when looking to meet their unique security challenges. Luckily I was fortunate enough to connect with several CIOs, CTOs and CISOs from across the U.S. government during last month’s GTRA Summit. After speaking with them and hearing their specific concerns and what is most important to them, the four biggest things that stood out were interoperability, return-on-investment (ROI), scalability, and a shift from detection and remediation to isolation.
These issues resonate with me because while they are the key foundations of a good security solution, they often get overlooked by the “next best thing” mentality. At Ntrepid we pride ourselves on focusing on the meat of a solution and not the flash; so it was refreshing to hear that government leaders are not getting caught up in the hype and are focusing on what is really important. So why were these four areas repeatedly coming up as the top areas of concern for the government? It comes down to ease of use and effectiveness.
Government agencies have a plethora of computer systems and getting them all to play nice can be a very daunting task. So when it comes down to integrating the latest and greatest security solutions, interoperability is high on the list. Interoperability is closely followed by ROI and scalability, because of the vast amounts of systems and users that must be taken into account. If your security solution is not easily scalable and you cannot easily demonstrate ROI, the likelihood of getting budget approval is far and few between. Being able to clearly demonstrate to your superiors the scalability and ROI of a solution is paramount for continued budgetary considerations year over year.
Lastly was a shift in the mindset of solely focusing on detection and remediation to one of isolation, or preventative solutions. This is significant, because in today’s reality breaches are a given, but there are areas where measures can be taken to effectively isolate users from targeted attacks. In fact, by implementing preventative tactics, you are essentially forcing adversaries to expend significantly more time and resources in order to compromise your infrastructure. And because adversaries often look for the easiest target, this is a very effective way to reduce the amount of attacks targeting your organization and valued employees.
If like me, you too are more concerned with a security solution meeting your functional needs rather than pushing out the latest marketing hype, check out how our secure, virtual browser, Passages meets all these criteria. There is no “Silver Bullet” security solution to address every concern, but when it comes to providing a secure web browsing experience that effectively isolates the user from harm, and is cost-effective, scalable, and easily integrates within any enterprise environment; Passages checks all the boxes.
