Jim Hansen, vice president of products for application management at SolarWinds (NYSE: SWI), said government agencies seeking to improve cybersecurity while ensuring the delivery of critical services to citizens during the COVID-19 pandemic should have a well-trained cyber workforce and field the right monitoring tools.
Recruiting cybersecurity professionals from the industry to join the government could be a challenge and Hansen wrote that agencies should hire and train security experts from their information technology teams.
âThe government should consider creating programs to train IT team members to take on higher-level cybersecurity roles, which helps agencies build effective teams and helps employees progress on a career path.”
âWhether they bring in new talent or train existing employees, agencies must offer competitive salaries and benefits to keep cybersecurity professionals satisfied and engaged,â Hansen added.
Agencies should protect their IT assets and infrastructure from insider threats by deploying monitoring controls like the SolarWinds Access Rights Manager platform that could help them track employeesâ activities and behavior whether they are linked to a cloud or an on-premises network.
Hansen called on agencies to train government employees to be vigilant of cyber threats and adopt a zero trust approach.
âIf they operate under the assumption that they cannot trust anyone or anything and apply security controls accordingly, agencies can save time, money and effort in discovering and containing threats whenever they appear,â he added.
