ARMONK, N.Y., July 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- According to
"Government Index for IT Modernization", a new study of current and
former U.S. government IT decision makers, commissioned by
IBM (NYSE: IBM), nearly 70% of those surveyed view security
risks as the top barrier when migrating to modern cloud platforms.
Of those surveyed, security also now outweighs reducing costs by
almost double as the reason to modernize IT infrastructures.
Recent cybersecurity threats including SolarWinds, one of
the largest supply chain attacks in recent history, and the Kaseya
cyberattack impacting 1,500 global organizations, have put a
spotlight on current cyber threats and existing vulnerabilities. In
an urgent response, President Biden issued an executive order,
urging federal agencies to modernize and protect their data from
existing and future threats.
As federal government agencies look to make decisions for their
long-term strategies, IBM's new market research, "Government Index
for IT Modernization" provides insights into the critical role of
security and privacy in cloud adoption and modernization
decision-making. The study, conducted by Morning Consult on
behalf of IBM, surveyed over 500 current and former IT government
decision makers based in the U.S. found:
- Modernization Drives Security - With cybersecurity
attacks on the rise, so too are budgets to protect data. Responding
government IT decision makers for all levels of government
anticipate agencies will spend the most on cybersecurity in
planning for FY22. According to the study, more than 75% of
respondents cited migrating and managing data from legacy systems
to the cloud as a challenge for their current or former agency,
with security was cited as the top barrier but also as a main
driver.
- Contradictions Over Security Readiness – The study found
that between 64% and 82% of respondents believe their current or
former agency is very prepared or somewhat prepared for a wide
range of current and future threats - from ransomware to
post-quantum attacks. Yet more than 40% believe it will take three
or more years to comply with the Biden Administration Cybersecurity
Executive Order to implement zero trust and encrypt all data, an
eternity in a world where security breaches occur with increasing
regularity. This contradiction is further reinforced when looking
at the current use of baseline security protocols – more than half
of IT decisions makers surveyed say their cloud administrators does
not always require complex passwords (50%) and
two-factor/multi-factor authentication (51%).
- Visibility Gets Cloudy - 50% of the respondents report
their agency is using a mix of security tools for on-premise and
cloud threats, creating a gap in visibility. At the same time
security is the top concern holding 46% of responding government IT
decision makers back from working with third party vendors. With
the average federal agency using 10 or more cloud providers and
working with hundreds of third parties, managing risk across this
growing attack surface is expected to further complicate
security.
"With the President's executive orders, the U.S. Federal market
is facing a massive transformation to its cybersecurity strategy
which requires a great deal of technological modernization. While
this is a priority for government IT decisions makers, our survey
found that they view security as both a driver and barrier to
modernization," said Howard Boville,
Head of IBM Cloud Platform. "Enterprise technology providers are
stewards of massive volumes of personal data, and we need to do our
utmost to protect this data. A public and private sector
partnership that adopts an open and secured hybrid cloud
architecture with sophisticated security capabilities can help
agencies ensure that data truly remains theirs, even in a
multi-cloud environment."
Managing Transformation and Risk in Hybrid, Multi-Cloud
Environment
IBM has a long history of collaboration with the U.S. Federal
Government helping it innovate, adapt and transform over a
multi-decade journey. This includes helping government agencies
ease cloud adoption, improve efficiency, bridge varied cloud
environments, and ensure mission critical workloads are integrated
with security.
Based on the results of the new study, IBM suggests the
following insights for managing risk while modernizing:
- Government entities should consider open and secure hybrid
cloud architectures to embrace innovation in the cloud which focus
on helping them keep their data protected. A hybrid cloud approach
can help governments manage data across on premise, off
premise/cloud and edge environments, securely.
- Complexity is the enemy of security and the approach to
modernization should incorporate a secure architecture, including
sophisticated capabilities that will not compromise or monetize
customer and citizen data at any cost. To help mitigate third party
risks it's vital to close any loopholes in the data security supply
chain, encrypting data being stored and transmitted and leveraging
confidential computing to protect data in use.
- New approaches for cybersecurity should be adopted to help
protect data across hybrid cloud environments – no matter where
data resides – either on premise, in the cloud or at the
edge.
For more information about IBM's work in the US Federal market,
visit: https://www.ibm.com/industries/federal
Methodology
The data sheds new light on how government
decision makers view obstacles to IT modernization. The research is
based on more than 500 responses collected among current or former
government IT decision makers in the
United States across local, state and Federal government
entities. The polling was conducted online through Morning
Consult's proprietary network of online providers in June 2021. All respondents were required to have
significant insight or input into their agency's IT
decision-making.
Contact:
Kaveri
Camire
IBM Communications
kcamire@us.ibm.com
Suzanne Cross
IBM Communications
Suzanne.cross@us.ibm.com
View original content to download
multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ibm-survey-government-it-modernization-driven-by-security-concerns-301334380.html
SOURCE IBM