A new MeriTalk study underwritten by Palo Alto Networks says 89 percent of federal information technology executives say their agencies’ standards and policies on endpoint security need to be improved.The report titled “Endpoint Epidemic†is based on an online poll of 200 federal IT managers and employees in September, MeriTalk said Thursday.
Forty-four percent of endpoint devices used in the federal government are unknown or not protected from cyber vulnerabilities, according to the survey.
“Endpoints are an increasingly important vector to secure in the cyber attack life cycle,†said Pamela Warren, director of government & industry initiatives at Palo Alto Networks.
“Applying the ‘zero trust’ model from the network to the endpoint with a natively integrated and automated next-generation security platform can dramatically improve visibility and prevent threats to government networks.â€
The study also revealed that 45 percent of federal personnel are not aware of bring-your-own-device policies in their agencies, while nearly 80 percent of them said they are willing to subject their personal devices to malware inspection.
Federal IT executives surveyed in the study believe the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation Phase II program and the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s cybersecurity framework could help their agencies’ endpoint security efforts.
Sixty-five percent of IT managers said they need to adopt threat intelligence and network security tools as well as update current policies in order to prevent unknown network threats.
