Federal agency breaches continue to rise, with traditional cyber strategies lagging in identification and response to lateral attacks. Microsegmentation offers a strategic response to monitoring cyber risks, containing threats and featuring autonomous response capabilities.
In the last 4 years (2021-2024), there have been several large-scale, visible federal agency cybersecurity breaches. Across the FAA, Department of Energy, the State Department, Medicaid, the Department of Defense, and the SolarWinds incidents, millions of personal, employee, identity, medical records, contractor data, and more have been exposed or held for ransomware.
From political actors to financially motivated independents or groups, the number of incidents has doubled in the last 4 years alone. Attacks have also become progressively more complex - targeting government programs, infrastructure, and supply chains - causing high-impact operations, and financial, and reputational damage. Threats are expected to grow, with countries, agencies, and independent groups seeking to exploit legacy systems and cybersecurity strategies not aligned to preventing today’s complex attacks.
For federal agencies, a cybersecurity response sea change is underway. Adding in Executive Order 14028, which bolsters the shift towards zero-trust architecture, federal agencies are exploring microsegmentation strategies as a cornerstone strategy in the battle for earlier threat detection and containment.
There are common themes across cyberattacks today - the root cause is frequently attributed to phishing and compromised credentials being used to conduct lateral attacks, taking advantage of legacy security gaps including static firewall rules, network vs. workload-centric access detection politics, and limited policy granularity across devices and datasets - creating containment challenges.
In addition, defense-detecting AI capabilities built into cyberattacks operate in real-time, out-maneuvering extended 30-90 day cycles of breach detection and response. Microsegmentation addresses these gaps directly by isolating workloads, applications, and endpoints, ensuring that even if attackers breach one segment, they will be detected and contained before they can move across the network.
Today, assessments of government cybersecurity divisions indicate anywhere from 50-75% of government agencies believe they have outdated infrastructure, insufficient resources to monitor events and run test scenarios, and out-of-date training, all of which corresponds to less than half of agencies feeling they have true real-time monitoring and zero-trust standard implementation.
Microsegmentation offers benefits across the span of those challenges, introducing cloud-based scaling with targeted and automated segment monitoring tools:
Reduce the Attack Surface / Segmentation: The principal value of microsegmentation lies in its ability to remove unnecessary connection points, particularly to external entry points, and isolate breaches in segmented zones. Segmenting data based on users, workload, and intent evaluation helps limit the spread of threats with automated breach containment, and helps comply with zero-trust mandates.
Ensure Compliance with Less Training Cycles: Federal data requires rigorous data security protocols. Microsegmentation offers a structured way to comply with evolving standards by implementing uniform and easy-to-update cloud-based access controls, reducing the cycles of training all staff.
Improved Visibility and Monitoring: Microsegmentation provides detailed insights into user traffic flows, enabling faster threat detection, and blending the best of AI and human detection.
Agility: Microsegmentation is aligned with flexible network architecture principles, supporting a multitude of environments, including on-premises, hybrid, and multi-cloud.
Scalability: Microsegmentation can evolve with an organization’s infrastructure and security scaling needs.
1. Assess Your Network and IT Roadmap: Identify and map all assets, devices, and applications within your network to understand where sensitive data resides. Understand how current IT roadmap initiatives such as IOT / Edge Computing may impact your device, user access, and read/write strategies.
2. Classify Assets / Data Based on Threat Sensitivity: Identify and classify critical data types to prioritize protection efforts.
3. Define Segmentation, Monitoring Solutions, and Response Policies: Establish rules that dictate which data and applications can communicate. Define monitoring solutions, reporting standards, and responses based on user roles, data sensitivity, and compliance/security requirements.
4. Ensure Integration with Broader Security Tools: Ensure that microsegmentation integrates with other security solutions like firewalls, intrusion detection, and SIEM systems for seamless protection.
5. Apply Identity-Based Access Controls: Ensure that access is granted based on verified identities and roles within the organization, limiting unnecessary data exposure.
6. Start Small and Expand Gradually: Select tools that integrate with your architecture. Progressively expand to expand critical environments.
7. Train Staff on Incident Response: Monitor and ensure proper guidelines are followed for data breach response.
8. Monitor and Adjust Segmentation Controls: Conduct regular tests to ensure autonomous responses are effective, without unintended consequences. Continuously monitor segmented areas for unusual activity, and regularly update segmentation controls to address new threats, regulatory changes, and latency challenges that may arise as data and device usage evolves.
Develop a Cross-Functional Security Team: Bring together security, IT, compliance, and operations staff to ensure the microsegmentation strategy aligns with the unique demands of agency workflows.
Prioritize High-Risk Areas: Start by segmenting the most critical parts of the network, such as high-security, PII, and financial systems, to quickly protect high-value data. Understand the potential impact of microsegmentation on insurance coverage and policies.
Establish a Clear Incident Response Plan: Even the best security protocols can face unexpected breaches. Develop a well-defined response plan that details the steps to isolate, contain, and mitigate threats.
Leverage Automated Monitoring and Reporting: Automated monitoring tools help agencies identify breaches, unusual data movement, and compliance violations in real time, enabling rapid responses to incidents. Integrate automation tools that can enforce Zero Trust by dynamically verifying permissions, reducing the risk of human error.
Build In Regular Compliance Audits and Adjustments: Regulations and industry practices evolve, and so should microsegmentation policies. Regular audits ensure that segmentations meet compliance standards and address emerging threats.
Balance Security and Usability: While strict security measures are crucial, they must not come at the expense of user experience, especially in operations or beneficiary-facing applications. Security leaders should work closely with IT and operations teams to ensure that segmentation policies do not interfere with usability or performance.
Selecting the right vendor is critical, as it determines the quality of the journey taken in developing the right security, scalability, and compliance capabilities of the microsegmentation strategy. Here are critical factors to consider in choosing the right vendor:
Experience in Government Security: Look for vendors with proven experience in federal agency IT security, who will be better prepared to understand the data, application, and workflow implications of government-specific challenges, from national security to handling sensitive data with contractors.
Expertise in Compliance: Ensure that the vendor is well-versed in regulations and executive order guidance, offering supplemental compliance tools for microsegmentation monitoring.
Compatibility with Existing Infrastructure: The ideal vendor should offer solutions compatible with the current IT environment, offering cost-benefit analysis for complex legacy IT solution considerations..
Scalability: As technology advances, so do security implications. Choose a vendor whose microsegmentation solutions are reflective of the flexibility required to support and scale with the organization’s evolving IT ecosystem offerings.
Tailored Automation and Analytics: Many vendors offer advanced automation features, such as automatic policy updates and real-time analytics, but lack customization experience with the nuances of federal agency operations and contracting. Only environment-aligned capabilities allow for meaningful insight in anticipating, modeling, and assessing the impact and response strategy to emerging security threats.
24/7 Support and Incident Response Customer Service: Security issues in government are global, and can arise at any time. A vendor with round-the-clock support and fast incident response services can help ensure microsegmentation closes the gap from identification to threat elimination.
Transparent Pricing and Long-Term Value: Transparent vendors provide a clear breakdown of costs, including setup, ongoing support, and scaling. Long-term planning is crucial for building trust - prioritize vendors that can define clear improvements in KPIs to create measurable ROI for your organization’s microsegmentation strategy.
Read: Top Microsegmentation Vendors
For federal agencies, microsegmentation delivers a proactive strategy to enhance security and compliance, meeting cyber threats where they operate. With the right strategy, vendor partner, and ongoing monitoring, federal agencies can safeguard confidential data, reduce risk, and adapt to evolving regulatory standards, creating a safer environment for government employees, contractors, and program recipients.
As a trusted advisor to hundreds of companies in solving their most complex technology and cyber issues, we welcome the opportunity to help you organize your strategic discussions, co-facilitate microsegmentation exploration workshops, and bring our advising capabilities to the table to optimize planning in any stage of the security journey.
Ready to take your organization’s defenses to the next level? Contact us today to develop your zero-trust strategy and harness the power of microsegmentation.