Here is the dilemma. On one hand, there is a constitutional mandate that American citizens have the right to petition the government; on the other hand, today’s leading attack tool, phishing, uses email as its primary attack vehicle. Traditional filters and gateway security have proven weak against this threat.

Today’s discussion gives you the best practices for managing this quandary and leaving your federal agency open to communication from citizens as well as keeping it safe.

Keep listening and you will find more challenges to deploying mandated solutions. Randall Vickers from the U.S. House of Representatives notes that they do not play by the same rules as the rest of the government. They are not mandated to comply with standard cyber regulations, and members of the House own their data. This combination makes it important to have a deep and thorough understanding of security practices, and the flexibility to apply them in this unique environment.

When listening you will find out that cyber security is not as simple as locking down a system. Let us take the many recommendations about cybersecurity collaboration. We know that federal agencies should share information about threats. When this encrypted information is sent from one agency to another, it is normally decrypted, inspected, and then encrypted and sent on its way. However, there may be compliance issues that prevent this inspection.

Zero trust and information sharing sure look good when they are proposed on a whiteboard. This is an interview that opens up some of the practical aspects of lofty federal mandates.

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