14 DAY TRIAL // A recent study made by TechAmerica reveals the challenges federal IT executives are confronted with on a daily bases and the figures show that internal and external data breaches are a top concern, along with the limitations posed by budgets.
The research is based on the answers provided by a number of 40 Chief Information Officers (CIO), Chief Technology Officers (CTO), and other IT leaders from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Management and Budget, and many others.
The report shows that a 10% increase in budget would be spent by CIOs on the modernization and improvement of the infrastructure, the consolidation of data centers, and cybersecurity. On the other hand, if presented with a 10% drop in budget, they would cut staff and slow down modernization processes.
As far as budget cuts are concerned, they’re considered to be only partly effective because they can make people become innovative, but there is no guarantee that the solutions will meet the needs.
As expected, security in the mobile department is an ever growing concern. One of the respondent admitted that it took 10 months of negotiation with the IT security office to allow them to enable the camera function on the company’s smartphones.
However, most are well aware of the risks posed the lack of proper policies regarding the use of mobile devices, especially since Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) practices have become a trend.
“Cybercrime is a 24/7 industry and in many cases the criminals are better equipped than the organizations they are attacking. To keep pace with well-funded cybercriminals, IT professionals need to think outside of the box and find ways to maximize the value of their existing solutions,” Lynne Courts, CMO at FoxT, told Softpedia after viewing the report.
“For example, they need to find ways to increase the protective power of firewalls, assure that vulnerability management systems can keep pace with the latest zero days, and that access management systems can provide defense against insiders and outsiders,” she added.
The complete report is available here