Government data breaches expose sensitive information while damaging the public’s faith that agencies can keep them safe, said Maricopa County, Ariz., CISO Lester Godsey during a GovLoop panel this week.
“The bigger impact, in a lot of instances, is every time there is a data breach, there’s a continued erosion of trust by our constituents, the business community, those people that we serve as government agencies,” he said.
The problem presents a moving target, but efforts to improve data awareness and inventorying, incorporate encryption efforts into larger cybersecurity strategies and employ strong authorization and access controls can all make a difference, speakers said.
“The technology has improved, the tool sets available to local governments have improved … but the scope and scale of the problem is increasing,” Godsey said.
THE ATTACK SURFACE BROADENS
The public-sector push to modernization has been a mixed blessing, speakers said. The COVID-19 pandemic spurred agencies to embrace cloud. But this rush into hybrid environments also complicated data management and oversight, adding more…
