Government agencies worldwide are entrusted with safeguarding sensitive data and facilitating seamless operations across various critical infrastructure sectors. However, this pivotal role puts them in threat actors’ sights – from cybercriminals to politically motivated entities to state-sponsored actors from other parts of the world.

The stakes are incredibly high as a successful attack can disrupt operations that impact lives and livelihoods, compromise sensitive personal information from public records, and erode the trust citizens place in government. However, government agencies face numerous challenges as they try to mitigate risk and secure operations and services.

Challenges Facing Government Agencies Worldwide

Ransomware
A global study across 14 countries highlights that ransomware is and remains the greatest threat, with ransomware attacks on state and local governments increasing from 58% to 69% year over year. Outcomes vary but can result in leaked personal information and service interruptions. In fact, the French government is ramping up cyber defenses after experiencing a series of ransomware attacks, including an attack against a hospital that disrupted patient care.

Denial-of-Service (DoS) Attacks
After a dip in 2022, cyber attacks for extortion purposes increased 30% in 2023. DoS attacks are rampant with hacktivists and pro-Russian groups claiming responsibility for attacks that have flooded servers with data to overwhelm their operational capacity. Recent targets have included the Israeli Prime Minister, the Swedish SAS Airlines, and France’s National Assembly website. 

Protecting Critical National Infrastructure
Government agencies worldwide also bear responsibility for providing a secure network as the foundation for Critical National Infrastructure. When the network is attacked the ripple effects can be extremely damaging and may result in compromises to services including energy, communications, transportation systems, or healthcare, to name a few.  

Resolutions
As government agencies strive to uphold their pivotal role as the backbone of societal infrastructure, safeguarding against these threats and updating existing and creating new reforms are top priorities. Multiple government agencies worldwide have put resolutions in place including the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), the updated Network and Information Systems (NIS2) Directive, and the expanded National Cybersecurity Authority (NCA) toolkit.

How to Combat Threats

Having a proper cyber defense plan in place, including processes for sharing threat intelligence across critical infrastructure sectors and prioritizing vulnerability management in relation to currently active exploits, is a cornerstone for building resilience. A leading threat intelligence operation helps government agencies:

1. Consolidate Threat and Event Data, including all (structured and unstructured) sources of external (e.g. DHS-AIS and OSINT feeds) and internal (e.g., SIEM) threat intelligence and vulnerability data.
2. Achieve Situational Awareness of the entire infrastructure (on-premises, cloud, IoT, mobile and legacy systems) by integrating vulnerability data and threat intelligence within the context of active threats.
3. Proactively Hunt for malicious activity which may compromise constituent records.
4. Prioritize and Collaborate to Accelerate Response by cutting through the noise to focus on what matters most to government agencies, and engaging in collaborative analysis that accelerates understanding, facilitates multi-agency interaction and dramatically improves response. 
5. Share Threat Intelligence automatically with detection and response tools.

The ThreatQ Platform equips government agencies worldwide with the right tools and insights needed to protect their important role as the backbone of societal infrastructure. 

For more details, download the new Industry Brief – HERE. 

To see the ThreatQ Platform in action, schedule a demo today.