The latest CrowdStrike Threat Intel Report included some eye-popping, though not surprising, statistics. Among them: Last year saw the fastest breakout time ever recorded at a mere 51 seconds. A 150% increase in China-linked activity. 79% of detections were malware-free. And the most active adversaries are increasingly, and in ever more sophisticated ways, using artificial intelligence toolsets in their attacks.
All of this points to a much more complex and difficult cyber threat landscape. As agencies continue to navigate this treacherous topography, it is critically important they avoid inadvertently fragmented cyber strategies that not only risk exploitation but invite it.
With environments that now span enterprise networks, edge devices, multi-cloud ecosystems and remote endpoints, agencies face a growing risk that their cybersecurity strategies become misaligned, inconsistent, or incomplete. Fortunately, there are actionable steps they can take now to strengthen defenses, create alignment and prepare for what’s coming.
Agencies Need Unified Visibility in Real-Time
The importance of real-time, unified visibility across the enterprise cannot be understated. Often times, teams will focus on prevention – what’s often called “left of boom.” But intrusions today are so stealthy and sophisticated that detection may only come after significant damage is done.
Gaps in visibility leave agencies vulnerable because they create opportunities for attackers to get into an environment and then laterally move across it. Once in place, they can observe and exploit at will. These gaps are problematic because they also leave agencies with limited ability to anticipate and recover both technically and operationally.
Modern tools now enable true enterprise-to-edge visibility, unifying threat data and enabling automated detection and response. When leveraged effectively, these capabilities empower teams to not just detect faster but to respond with precision.
New Technologies Offer Advanced Threat Protection and Proactive Threat Hunting
Emerging cybersecurity capabilities and architectures like SASE, CNAPP, CWP and XDR are increasingly being deployed across government environments. That’s a promising sign. Alongside this growth, there’s also an emerging trend of more platform-type tool sets that offer efficiencies in costs, speed and efficacy. This minimizes the number of disparate tools while maximizing cyber defense capabilities. The current cyber landscape demands these types of modern, holistic capabilities.
Recent Threat Hunting Successes Offer Learnings for All
With the increase in vulnerabilities and zero-day attacks from adversaries leveraging artificial intelligence, XDR platforms have become more important. In fact, they are among the core components of defensive operations assisting with thwarting adversaries within the 51 second breakout times that CrowdStrike observed. Agencies continue to expand this capability and improve threat hunting strategies with the evolving threat landscape, including more telemetry. Pairing these capabilities with AI-native cybersecurity tools allows intelligent automation across the Security Operations Center (SOC). It also allows cybersecurity teams to move faster and make better decisions focused on the most critical threats. The modern SOC requires more integration, AI-infused capabilities, and automation that allows agencies to stay ahead of threats.
Agencies must move swiftly to create visibility across their entire enterprise and get clarity about what gaps exist and where. Then, they can use modern tools and platforms to take proactive steps to protect their infrastructure while also enhancing their ability to anticipate and detect the intrusions that will almost certainly occur. Mission partners with a knowledge of both the threats and tools landscape can help.
