By Alan Duric
Mar 15, 2021
Government agencies have been unable to maintain trust in their cybersecurity capabilities this past year, and for good reason. The onset of the pandemic, followed by a year of tumultuous cyberattacks, has further damaged an IT infrastructure that had long been vulnerable to bad actors, nation-state and otherwise.
The perfect storm of pandemic-related events and vulnerable infrastructure has challenged federal, state and local governments. Not only did 2020 see a massive increase in data breaches, with the first quarter of the year showing a 278% increase in leaked government records, cyberattacks happened on a much larger scale, as seen with the SolarWinds hack that affected governments and businesses. These events have clearly shown that if governments continue relying on outdated and insufficient systems and protocols, the number of successful attacks will only grow in size and consequence.