Tag: cybersecurity

State and local government (SLG) organizations need to reflect and refocus on cyber hygiene and continuous improvement of their security posture. Here are some best practices for SLG chief information security officers (CISOs) and IT professionals to consider in their cloud journey.

As organizations mature in their cybersecurity capabilities, they are looking to try and leverage automation to reduce the operational burden of alerting, detecting, and responding to threats. This blog post walks through how to combine findings from disparate security systems into a single operational view to help analysts identify, respond, and remediate existing threats while maintaining a dynamic response platform that scales with their environment.

The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS) added more AWS services to its assessment of the AWS Canada (Central) Region, bringing the total number of assessed AWS services to 120. This provides Canadian public sector customers additional confidence that AWS Cloud services meet the Government of Canada’s security control requirements. Using these services in conjunction with the deployment of the open source AWS Secure Environment Accelerator (ASEA) solution reduces cloud service configuration time from months to days.

President Biden’s executive order emphasizes the need to elevate information security as a core tenet of national security, and calls on federal agencies and public sector organizations to work with the private sector to prioritize the data security and privacy of the American people and government. AWS and AWS Partners can help government agencies align with the initiatives in this executive order.

With a new round of funding, the US federal government has the opportunity to advance the largest government-wide technology modernization program in a generation. As part of the American Rescue Plan that was signed into law in March, federal agencies are eligible to modernize their mission delivery with additional money available in the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF). Cloud computing offers a variety of solutions agencies can consider for TMF projects.

According to the 2020 Deloitte-NASCIO Cybersecurity Study for state governments, 54 percent of states are not confident in their ability to protect emerging technology. Traditional cybersecurity approaches can result in singularly focused solutions that don’t provide holistic protection. It can also inhibit an organizations’ ability to monitor and respond to security threats in real time. As more organizations shift to cloud-based workloads, security mechanisms and components need to be developed and integrated using a Security by Design (SbD) approach. Our AWS Partners have developed pre-configured security solutions, which allow customers to deploy applications using SbD strategies and also use AWS security solutions to ensure continuous security alignment. 

As the U.S. begins to rebound from the health and economic disruption, experts predict that the technology sector will help lead the way to job growth and economic recovery. The challenge is how and where to source the talent needed to fill in-demand jobs. As more companies embrace migration to the cloud, finding professionals with the specialized skills and expertise will be critical to business success. NPower is a national nonprofit with a mission to provide career opportunities and training to underserved populations including young adults, minorities, women, and veterans. In 2017, NPower partner Accenture proposed a new opportunity to develop a best-in-class cloud program with AWS.

The rapid acceleration of digital transformation has raised expectations for efficient and effective engagement with service providers. Many expect the same engagement with government agencies as they do from consumer services such as video-on-demand, ecommerce, and online food delivery. In Australia, the government is prioritising delivering services through technology in a fast and secure way. The CSCP was closed in March 2020 and the ISM was updated to remove the requirement to select services from the Certified Cloud Services List (CCSL). However, the discontinuation of the CSCP does not alter Amazon Web Services (AWS) commitment to help Australian Government agencies innovate rapidly and securely.

How can the cloud help modernize your organization? Members of the AWS Partner Network (APN), customers, and industry experts shared best practices on cloud migration, cloud adoption, and organizational transformation in a recent episode of Government Matters Industry Insider.

Cloud security at AWS is the highest priority. AWS customers benefit from a data center and network architecture built to meet the requirements of the most security-sensitive organizations. We listen closely to our customers to offer both a secure cloud computing environment and innovative security services that satisfy the security and compliance needs of the most risk-sensitive organizations.