As we celebrate the week of Thanksgiving, Government Technology Insider is taking a moment to look back at – and be thankful for – the advice of industry experts from the past few months. From RedSeal and Reed Tech to SolarWinds, we have heard about cyber resilience, meeting the mission while improving citizen experience, and why a year-round focus on federal buying opportunities is important.
Cyber Resilience – Bouncing Back After a Breach: A Q&A with Dr. Mike Lloyd of RedSeal
Dr. Mike Lloyd, Chief Technology Officer for RedSeal, says that organizations who believe they have fully protected themselves from cyber threats are missing the point. Planning and preparing for “what can possibly go wrong” can help prevent the worst and get you back up and running faster and with much less impact to your operations and your users. As he explained in a podcast, “We’ve seen a shift in thinking going on from organizations who are just trying to stop the attack of the week. And that technique hasn’t been working all that well. Organizations have been shifting their thinking to, ‘How do I deal with the fact that, unfortunately, some successful attacks are probably inevitable.’ So, I need to be planning for those downsides. You can read Dr. Lloyd’s post here or listen to his podcast here.
Improving Citizen Experience with Federal Agencies: Jeff Kramer from Reed Tech Shares Best Practices
The first step in best practices for service delivery and information security is determining whether you need the “truckloads” of information your agency is generating, Jeff Kramer, Senior Director of Government Solutions for Reed Tech, shared. “How relevant is that information?” Kramer said that the government spends an inordinate amount of time, money, and resources just moving paper documents around from one warehouse to another, but that everything is moving toward going digital. To protect that data in the future, Kramer said, “I’m a big proponent of data in one place. The more places you have data, the more vulnerabilities you have. There are so many agencies out there that have your Social Security number in multiple places. Your number should only be stored in one place.” Find out what else he shared with us by clicking here.
Federal Buying Season is Here, but is Q4 all That Different? A Q&A With Paul Parker of SolarWinds
We spoke with Paul Parker, Chief Technologist for Federal and National Government at SolarWinds, about the Federal Buying Season and found his insight to be worthwhile for the entire year. “As somebody who has been both a federal government buyer and a federal government seller, these conversations are happening all the time, whether it’s Q4, Q2, Q3, Q1 — let’s pick any one of these quarters? It’s no less critical; it’s no more critical. It’s just simply people tend to freak out when money hits the card and they need to spend it quickly.” Parker’s advice for government IT leaders: “… have conversations with your engineers and architects and find out what are the critical needs. When does it need to be procured? How is it going to be procured? And does this address all the requirements?” Read everything Parker shared here.
