The future of information security in the government

A new report from Intel Security and the Digital Government Security Forum (DGSF) looks at the fast changing digital world, which promises to transform how our government and public services operate.

It indicates that government and the wider public services will place increasing reliance on robust information security as public sector organisations continue exploiting developments in technology and digital information.

But information security needs to support this opportunity if we are to see the benefits of the digital revolution that the Government, public services and the NHS will face over the next decade by an explosion of data.

Information security will become even more important. Sophisticated cyber gangs already perceive governments and healthcare organisations as a prime target for cyberattacks, cyber extortion and ransomware.

The report calls for a change of mind-set from ‘incident response’ to ‘continuous detection and response’, from ‘fire brigade’ to ‘detectives’.

At present information security tends to be very fragmented as it has been developed and implemented on a tactical basis reacting to new developments and changes in types of threats. As a result, it is generally silo-based and this creates opportunities for threat actors to exploit the gaps and overlaps between the silos. Technology and threats are changing faster than many security policies and controls.

‘We need to be thinking now about the security and data sharing implications of the ways that we will work in the future. This includes not just near term issues like cloud computing and social media, but also longer term developments such as automated systems for enquiry handling and even driverless vehicles’ says John Thornton of the DGSF.