Four steps to build cyber resilience in the public sector

Nation-state backed cyber attacks are an ever-present risk for the public sector. But in a year in which over 50 countries are heading into high-profile elections, it is more important than ever that democratic nations shore up their defenses against malicious actors. With a recent and urgent warning from GCHQ highlighting the severity of modern geopolitical cyber risk, bolstering cyber resilience should be a top public sector priority. The security and operational success of government organizations is increasingly coming under the public spotlight. As a result, threat actors know that the national and reputational damage potential of a successful attack is high, giving ample ammunition for extortion. But while financial gain may appeal to ransomware groups, nation state attackers will see an opportunity to cause devastating disruptions and undermine our national security. It may sound like stating the obvious, but all critical national infrastructure providers should have a clear understanding of the threat.

Worryingly, there is a common misconception that threat actors must use very complex hacking methods to break into networks, and yet simple blind spots persist. The weakest point of an organizations’ defenses is almost always its own people. Bad actors will often secure their initial foothold in a corporate network through social engineering tactics, tricking members of the organization into exposing their companies to malware or releasing their credentials to a fake login page. This problem is further exacerbated by hybrid cloud environments that have users accessing corporate and cloud based networks through personal devices or on unsecured networks while out of the office. With nation state actors’ ample supply of resources and time to find critical vulnerability gaps, proactively shoring up defenses is crucial.