Using real-time data platforms to plug cybersecurity skills gap
How can we use real-time data platforms to improve the cybersecurity skills gap crisis in government and the public sector?
There is a crisis in cybersecurity skills, and the public sector, including government agencies, will be feeling the cumulative impact this year.
A report by Ipsos for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport last May found that many UK businesses needed more staff with the technical, incident response, and governance skills needed to manage their cyber security. Given that the government has responsibility for securing all our critical national infrastructure and attempts to attract quality cybersecurity talent into the public sector in recent years have not reduced the skills gap, action needs to be taken now to withstand the growing threat landscape.
How common are security breaches in government?
Headlines relating to government security breaches seem to litter the media frequently. In November 2022, the FT reported that the data protection regulator reprimanded the Department for Education for giving improper access to identifying information on up to 28 million children; April 2022 saw 170 email addresses of customers inadvertently copied into an email by the UK Home Office’s visa service and the previous December the Cabinet Office was fined £500,000 by the Information Commissioners Office after the postal addresses of the 2020 New Year honours recipients leaked online.
The hand of malicious insiders seems to have been at work in at least two of these incidents, which reflects the dangers that lurk internally for many government departments. It’s why having strong internal security measures in place is so important and why the visibility of suspicious activity in real-time, or as it is occurring, is essential. If government security teams can create intelligent cyber threat metrics, capture and identify active cyber threats, and minimise false positives, they are better positioned to thwart attacks.
More data can translate into more threat insights
The proliferation of data is at the heart of both the problem and the solution when it comes to cybersecurity. With more real-time data at their disposal, the better-informed…