AST July 2018 Magazine AST July 2018 Magazine Issue 24 | Page 63

We’ve
also
Volume
25 seen instances of
U.S. citizens’ personal data
being made available to the
public, which has heightened
awareness with government
officials.
For example, Strava, a popular fitness
navigation app, accidentally revealed
the location of military bases in war
zones worldwide potentially putting
troops and U.S. national security at
risk.
Thales recently issued its 2018 Federal
Data Threat Report, which reinforces the
need for federal agencies to update IT
legacy systems and increase security for
storing sensitive data.
July 2018 Edition
(Strava is said to have revealed the location, layout and staffing
of secret military bases.
To put it into perspective, only 26% of
non-U.S. government agencies worldwide
experienced a breach this past year.
The numbers reveal that the trend from
previous years continues, but even with
a higher sense of urgency since digital
The report also reveals that the U.S.
government continues to struggle with transformation is becoming a significant
driver for data threats at federal agencies.
the same cybersecurity challenges that
other industries face, but against a dif-
ferent set of obstacles (i.e. nation state
hackers, compliance mandates and
terribly outdated software).
The numbers don’t lie The adoption of cloud and SaaS applications,
big data implementations, IoT, containers,
mobile payments and blockchain technologies
already raise security risks since they require
new approaches to protecting the data within
each environment.
Within the past year, 57% of federal re-
spondents experienced a data breach.
This marks a huge jump from the 2017
report (34% of breached) and the 2016
report (18%). Additionally, 81% of respondents report-
ed that they will be storing sensitive data
within these environments, making them
a prime target for cybercriminals and em-
phasizing the need for strong security. 63
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