Technology

New York Government Updates Cybersecurity


Cybersecurity continues to be a major focus for organizations as they work to protect themselves from the threat of a malicious attack. The importance of robust cybersecurity measures has been magnified further over the past year, as the COVID-19 pandemic forced businesses to switch their employees to remote working almost overnight. This sudden shift to remote working left many organizations vulnerable to malicious actors attempting to capitalize on security weaknesses caused by working offsite. 

For the New York Cyber Command Center, this switch to remote working was less of a problem. The New York City Cyber Command Center had already put in place a zero-trust policy to strengthen their cybersecurity and minimize potential weaknesses in their systems. This helped to ensure that the transition to working from home was seamless. 

New York Cyber Command Center’s introduction of zero-trust security architecture has proved so successful that there are now plans to roll out the framework right across the New York City government. This ambitious plan will be extremely complex to implement and is likely to take years to complete. It is hoped that scaling up the architecture to make it city-wide will ensure that New York remains secure and resilient in the cyber world for years to come.

What is a Zero-Trust Policy?

The zero-trust model is considered to be so effective that it is widely regarded as the gold standard in cybersecurity, but it is still a relatively new concept.

User access is limited as part of the zero-trust approach. Instead of being able to move freely around your network, users should only be granted permission to access information that they need. To make zero-trust architecture work, organizations must regularly review user permissions and remove any that are no longer needed.

The zero-trust model’s effectiveness is due to its ensuring that security is present at every single layer of the network. Instead of merely defending the perimeter of an organization’s network security, each aspect of it is protected.

Is a Zero-Trust Policy Beneficial for Businesses?

The success of the New York Cyber Command Center’s move to a zero-trust framework has inspired other agencies to begin implementing the policy. Both the U.S. Army and NASA are working to introduce a zero-trust policy to improve their security. 

Many businesses are looking for cybersecurity measures to protect them from the ever-growing threat of cyber attacks, and a zero-trust policy could provide one such defense. A trusted IT company in Fairfield can help businesses evaluate their organization and current cybersecurity setup to evaluate whether a zero-trust policy could be beneficial.

All organizations are vulnerable to cybersecurity threats and data breaches, so finding new ways to gain more protection from these is crucial. Being the victim of a cyberattack could devastate your business and cause both financial and reputational damage. Introducing a zero-trust policy will help you to guard against this.

Zero-trust architecture reduces the complexity of your network security while at the same time giving you the peace of mind that sensitive customer data is protected by a robust security model at every layer of your network.