Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

The government sector is facing growing cybersecurity threats that require robust solutions to safeguard sensitive data and critical infrastructure. With rapidly evolving threats—from adversarial actions from politically unstable state actors to GenAI-powered social engineering and phishing campaigns—the government sector faces a pressing need to transition from reactive threat monitoring to proactive threat monitoring.

Today, we announced our commitment to achieving the US Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) - High, Australian Infosec Registered Assessors Program (IRAP), and Spain’s Esquema Nacional de Seguridad (ENS) as part of Cloudflare for Government. As more and more essential services are being shifted to the Internet, ensuring that governments and regulated industries have industry standard tools is critical for ensuring their uptime, reliability and performance.

As a former federal CISO, I’ve observed a persistent and dangerous misconception within government agencies: the belief that smart card authentication eliminates the need for enterprise password and Privileged Access Management (PAM) solutions. This assumption creates critical security vulnerabilities that deserve closer examination.

Government contractors handling Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) for the Department of Defense must navigate complex compliance requirements. Central to these requirements is the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC), which mandates conformance to NIST SP 800-171 and DFARS 252. This framework encompasses 110 security requirements across 14 security domains, including Access Control, Audit and Accountability, Risk Assessment, Incident Response, and several others.

Cyber incidents can result in catastrophic consequences. Cyber risks faced by public sector organisations need a plan. NCSC developed the cyber assessment framework (CAF) to help organisations achieve and demonstrate cyber resilience, specifically in, specifically by identifying the important functions at risk of disruption due to cyber incidents.

The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) is a U.S. government program designed to standardize and streamline the assessment, authorization and continuous monitoring of cloud computing services for federal agencies. It establishes a consistent set of security requirements for Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) to ensure their products meet the rigorous security and privacy needs of the federal government.

In today’s digital age, achieving cyber resilience is no longer an option—it has become a necessity. Yet, according to the latest report by Splunk, conducted in collaboration with Foundry, a significant cyber confidence gap exists among public sector organizations in this critical area.

Cybersecurity leaders across all levels of government are growing increasingly alarmed by the rise of cyber attacks fueled by Artificial Intelligence (AI). Cybercriminals are now incorporating machine learning and automation into their strategies, significantly boosting the scale, efficiency and sophistication of their attacks. According to a recent survey of over 800 IT leaders, a staggering 95% believe that cyber threats have become more advanced than ever before.