Organizations of all sizes now have more awareness of the need to protect sensitive information stored on their IT infrastructure in a number of ways. With this in mind, many businesses and other groups are now taking a multi-pronged approach to monitoring threats and building adequate defenses in light of growing potential for being breached. That includes government agencies, which are trying to take a holistic view of their potential vulnerabilities.

Today, more than 4 in every 5 federal agencies are using some sort of big data analytics to examine their possible weaknesses when it comes to detecting and preventing data breaches, according to new data from Meritalk. That number includes more than half of agencies who use this as part of their overarching breach defense, and more than a quarter that say they use this information occasionally. And so far it seems to be working: Of those agencies using such data, 90 percent said it helped them combat their weaknesses.

A persistent problem
However, despite that level of awareness when it comes to vulnerabilities, and the steps taken to prevent data breaches in this and other ways, nearly 3 in 5 agencies surveyed still acknowledged they suffered at least one lapse in cybersecurity per month, the report said. This came in part because the agencies cannot more closely analyze all threats. In fact, nearly half of all respondents noted there's just too much data to sift through, and about 1 in 3 said they don't have the proper systems to get all the data they need. Nearly as many also added the information they get isn't always as timely as they'd like it to be.

This is a similar problem faced by smaller businesses across the U.S., and oftentimes federal agencies have far bigger cybersecurity budgets than do independent companies. As such, it might be wise for smaller companies to look into how data center services can help them maintain the best possible defensive posture as data breach threats continue to multiply.

More to be done
At the same time, other government agencies continue to struggle to implement all the security measures they might need, according to a report from Health IT Security. Recently, the Office of Inspector Genera found that the state of New York's health insurance exchange did not do enough to ensure consumers' sensitive information, and did not meet federal requirements. And while no one vulnerability was significant, there were enough issues when it came to the state's overall protection that they added up to a major issue for the marketplace.

'Although we did not identify evidence that the vulnerabilities in the New York marketplace's Web site had been exploited, exploitation could have resulted in unauthorized access to and disclosure of PII, as well as disruption of critical marketplace operations,' the OIG wrote in its findings.

As a result, the OIG recommended that the New York exchange put in the work to meet federal safety requirements on its exchange site as soon as possible, the report said. However, it did not specify what those changes should be because of the sensitivity of the issue.

CyrusOne Inc. published this content on 18 November 2016 and is solely responsible for the information contained herein.
Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 03 December 2016 02:18:05 UTC.

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