AST July 2018 Magazine AST July 2018 Magazine Issue 24 | Page 67

To see the full results of the Federal Edition of the within the last year, and in our 2017 report, 34
Volume 25
July 2018 Edition
2018 Global Data Threat Report, please click here. percent reported a breach within the last year).
Going Inside the Report with Nick Jovanovic, The 57 percent rate statistic is the highest of
all verticals we measured in this year’s report
VP Federal of Thales eSecurity Federal
(others include the healthcare industry, the
retail industry, and the financial services in-
dustry) or any region surveyed.
These statistics indicate data breaches remain
pervasive within the federal government, and
that the current methods being used to secure
agency data are not working as effectively as
they could.
There also appears to be some confusion over
how to best protect critical data.
Nick Jovanic, VP, Thales eSecurity Federal
What are some of the key findings from the
2018 Federal Data Threat Report?
Our 2018 Thales Data Threat Report, Federal
Edition, issued in conjunction with analyst
firm 451 Research, polled U.S. federal IT lead-
ers about data security, data breaches, spend-
ing practices, and a gamut of other security-re-
lated issues.
Respondents cite data-in-motion and data-at-
rest solutions as being the most effective at
preventing breaches, but their spending deci-
sions don’t align with this sentiment.
While 73 percent are increasing spending, 56
percent are spending that money on endpoint
and mobile defenses, and only 19 percent are
spending it on data-at-rest security.
The FTDR responses show that 70% of feder-
al agencies have been breached. Why do you
This year’s report is especially relevant because think the numbers are so high?
it tells us federal agency data is under siege.
Seventy-one percent of respondents report
their organization was breached sometime in
the past.
Of those organizations, 57 percent have been
breached in the last year – a number that is
three times the rate of just two years ago (in
our 2016 report, 18 percent reported a breach
Many federal agencies are focused on end-
point security, which, we believe, is focusing
on the wrong area.
Instead, protecting data that is already on their
system should be the focus. Attackers are not
focused on the edge.
So, organizations should focus on where true
67
34