Overview of Cyber Security in the Public Sector

According to a study by the Ponemon Institute and sponsored by Tenable, 88% of organizations in this sector have suffered at least one harmful cyber attack in the last two years and 62% have experienced two or more. It is also mentioned that the public sector often lacks tools to respond to cyber-attacks; does not have visibility on its attack surface; It faces insufficient IT security strategies and still depends on manual or outdated processes.

To the question; What are the top priorities for cybersecurity leaders in the public sector in 2019? The Ponemon Institute conducted a survey of 244 public sector employees in Mexico as well as in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and Japan responsible for evaluating and/or managing the investments of organizations in cybersecurity solutions.

Tenable and the Commercial Service of the Embassy of the United States, shared in the event five conclusions of this study, to understand the current position of cybersecurity of the public sector:

1. Cyberattacks in the public sector. They have caused data breaches, disruption and downtime for operations in strategic facilities.
2. The prevention of attacks against IoT and operational technology infrastructure (OT) is a priority for 2019. When ranking its main cybersecurity concerns for 2019, almost two-thirds (65%) of public sector respondents say they are concerned about the attacks that involve IoT or OT assets. 61% are specifically concerned about attacks against OT infrastructure.
3. Cybersecurity technicians in the public sector face fundamental challenges in managing cyber risk. Only 23% of respondents say they have visibility on their attack surface. They lack adequate personnel and efficient processes to manage the accumulation of vulnerabilities. 62% of respondents say that the security function of their organizations does not have adequate personnel to detect vulnerabilities in a timely manner.
4. To help mitigate cyber-attacks, new approaches are needed to measure cyber risks. Traditional KPIs or metrics to assess business risks cannot be used to understand cyber risks. Only a quarter (27%) of respondents say their organizations can correlate KPI information of cyber risk with mitigating actions in a data breach or exploitation of security.
5. An intelligent prioritization of vulnerabilities is key to getting ahead of cyber attackers. 63% of respondents say they want to improve their ability to keep up with the sophistication and stealth of the attackers. However, almost half (44%) say they prioritize threats based on ease of remediation, which is far from ideal. On the contrary, prioritization should be based on the threats that represent the greatest risk.

Finally, Luis Isselin, general director of Tenable in Mexico reiterated his gratitude to the Commercial Service of the US Embassy for joining in the task of raising public and private organizations' awareness about cyber risks and best practices to reduce them.

Previously published in: https://esemanal.mx/2019/09/panorama-de-la-seguridad-cibernetica-en-el-sector-publico/