Effective operation of federal government agencies increasingly depends on a smooth, secure flow of information across organizations, among stakeholders, and with the public. The tools used for this collaboration and communication too often fail to meet the security and compliance standards that agencies require. This means that operations and delivery of essential services are at risk of being disrupted.
This vulnerability was exacerbated in 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic and the mass migration of federal workers to remote work. Consider that in 2018, only 22% of federal workers were permitted to telework from home. Today, almost three-fourths of federal workers now telecommute. A recent report from the federal Pandemic Response Accountability Committee warned of “inadvertent spills and disclosures of classified information by employees performing unclassified work at home”. Clearly, remote work has made sensitive federal information less secure.
Worse yet, as agencies struggle to provide the remote workforce with high levels of worker connectivity, cyberattacks have surged by an estimated 400%. Many of these attacks have taken advantage of insecure communication tools, exposing chronic security vulnerabilities and serious design flaws.