Cyber attacks are more prevalent than ever, and federal agencies have been taking major steps to improve their defense posture against the threat of such aggressions. But have they been doing enough? With the passing of the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA), government agencies have had to change the way they look at cyber security and shift their focus toward dealing with the repercussions of quicker and more prevalent attacks, especially when data centers are plentiful.

We recently spoke with James Yeager, Federal Director for Tanium, about the impact of FITARA on federal CIO’s, as well as what federal agencies can do to protect themselves despite the lack of explicit guidance in FITARA.
“The game has kind of changed,” explains Yeager, “it’s no longer about keeping the bad guys out. They’re in, make no mistake about it.”

Yeager recognizes that Federal CIO’s face many challenges in the current IT climate, including maintaining outdated legacy systems, and having inadequate human capital resources. The first step to overcoming these obstacles and to increasing efficiency is to create a strong sense of “cyber hygiene”.

Yeager suggests that by always understanding the current state of the Department’s IT enterprise and by having the ability to respond with urgency when under duress, organizations can then “gain leverage back on the cyber adversary and begin to hunt”.

Listen to all that Yeager shared about FITARA and cyber hygiene below.