b'SolarWinds supply chain compromised to the Russian foreign intelligence service actors and the White House attributed the exploitation of Microsoft service exchange vulnerabilities to Chinese state sponsored cyber actors. On top of the exploitation of these vulnerabilities over the past few months, Americans have experienced the real world consequences of the ransomware epidemic as malicious cyber actors targeted a fuel pipeline taking down part of our infrastructure on a regional level, a meat production and a tech Today, as you watch provider that delivers services to companies around the world was also impacted in ransomware epidemics. The list goes on, but I think the news, no matter that these examples illustrate the dynamic environment we find ourselves in today. Now that we know what were up against, we also where you look, you know that we will need to take the bold action necessary to transform our entire nations cybersecurity posture. Weve seen a shift and a see ransomware. To greater recognition this past year of the need for collective action to solve our nations cybersecurity challenges. If the last year has taught me, ransomware is us anything, its that the threat landscape is only going to continue to the greatest threat.evolve and become more complex. Wherever the threat of tomorrow is, we have to start preparing for it today and in partnership together. - Davon Tyler Sean Connelly: I think there are three challenges right now that areat the immediate forefront for all of us. First is just, technologysrapidly changing. What weve survived on or relied on for the last 15 plus years is really different from what were seeing over the last few years. The transition to cloud, transition to remote workforce, just the breakdown of traditional perimeter. I think that the technology landscape is changing. At the same time, we know the threat landscape is changing too. A lot of what we built our network security around for the last 10-15 years is really changing because the adversary is becoming more proficient, more advanced, more adept. So, the threat landscape forces us to also advance our technology. The third challenge, I think is critical though, is the dearth in IT talent. Meaning theres a recognized gap thats just isnt on the government, its on the industry itself. Having the experts that have both a network architecture background and cybersecurity background, those arent easy to train. They need to have years of knowledge behind them, a level of understanding. So, that lack of IT knowledge across the spectrum of industry, academia, and government is well known. State Department Official: Ultimately from a security standpoint, we do a pretty decent job of defending ourselves. The problem is the insider threats . because typically on the inside its less secure than on the outside. Thats the entire driving mindset for zero trust. It doesnt matter where you are, we always have to make sure you are the right person getting to the right assetEvery new thing we do, you need to approach it with a zero trust mindset.Rob Leahy: Knowing whats on your network, whats connected to the network, andensuring that only trusted devices are able to connect to the network If you dont know whats connected to the network, you cant protect it. If theres devices that are connecting and you dont know theyre there, you dont know what kind of vulnerabilities those devices are bringing with them through the IT network.Government Business Council Securing the Nations Network|Page 4'