Surprising ways the government shutdown actually boosted federal cybersecurity

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

https://www.fifthdomain.com/critical-infrastructure/2019/01/30/surprising-ways-the-government-shutdown-actually-boosted-cybersecurity/

By Justin Lynch
FifthDomain.com
1/30/2019

Lawmakers and IT security analysts have warned that the 35-day partial 
government shutdown crippled cybersecurity of federal networks. However, 
new research shows that the shutdown actually boosted the federal 
government’s digital defenses in some areas.

Security Scorecard, an organization that tests cybersecurity, found that 
both endpoint security and patching actually increased inside the federal 
government during the five-week partial shutdown.

The study illustrates the complicated nature of improving cybersecurity 
inside the federal government and the overwhelming workloads IT officials 
face.

"The most secure computer is one that is turned off, and there were a lot 
of turned off computers during the shutdown," Alex Heid, chief research 
officer at Security Scorecard, told Fifth Domain. "We saw a drop in 
internet traffic coming from .gov during the shutdown," which made the 
federal government "less of an exploitable attack vector."

[...]

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