Titania, specialists in accurate network security and compliance assessments and risk remediation software, launched a new independent research report that uncovers the impact of exploitable misconfigurations on the security of networks in the U.S. federal government.
The study, The impact of exploitable misconfigurations on the security of agencies’ networks and current approaches to mitigating risks in the U.S. Federal Government, finds that network professionals report that they are meeting their security and compliance practices, but data suggest that risk remains elevated. A result which, according to the findings from the report, is likely to be costing billions of dollars each year.
Notably, the research disclosed that federal government respondents were the only sector representatives to say that they exclusively assessed the configurations of their firewalls. Switches and routers were not included in their network checks. So, in effect, the agencies are sampling the security of their fleets of network devices. According to Zero Trust best practice, continuous assessment of all devices is essential when it comes to preventing intrusion and inhibiting lateral movement across networks. Sampling is an inherently risky approach to configuration security that leaves agencies open to the threat of configuration drift taking down networks.
In addition, the survey found most federal government respondents cite the inability to prioritize risk (81%) and inaccurate automation (44%) as their top two challenges in meeting their enterprise security and external compliance requirements. Federal respondents also indicated that financial resources allocated to mitigating network configuration risks, which currently stands at around 3.4% of the total IT budget, are a limiting factor in configuration management.
Specifically, the study, which surveyed senior cybersecurity decision-makers across the U.S. federal government, revealed:
“A determined attacker will try every way to access a network until they gain entry,” said Matt Malarkey, VP, Strategic Alliances, Titania. “A known vulnerability or misconfiguration is an easy way in. As our report uncovers, the U.S. federal government is not immune. Government agencies need to adopt a Zero Trust approach to cybersecurity – hardening networks from the inside-out to make it significantly harder for intruders to gain entry and move laterally.”
“Other proactive security practices, like attack surface management, encourage organizations to show continuous vigilance. So, it’s important that government agencies adopt them, especially since the recent joint Cybersecurity Advisory from the NSA, CISA and FBI pointed to enemies altering network device configurations to enable and scale attacks,” added Malarkey. “Increasing the frequency of risk assessments and remediation of all network devices is the first step to preventing configuration drift from taking down U.S. government networks and allowing intruders to gain access to sensitive systems and data.”
To continue helping the public sector close the gap on cybersecurity weaknesses related to misconfigurations, Titania has partnered with Merlin Cyber, a company focused on innovation, technical expertise and go-to-market acceleration that enables the U.S. Government to solve critical cybersecurity challenges with best-in-class and emerging solutions. “Government networks are changing every single day as agencies embrace digital transformation and shift to the cloud,” said Dean Webb, cybersecurity engineer at Merlin Cyber. “However, if federal agencies are not continuously monitoring their network device configurations, they are in essence inherently trusting the operation of those devices. This practice is not only counter to Zero Trust principles, but it also is proving to be a very soft target for bad actors to exploit and to gain a foothold into sensitive government systems and data.”