US Federal Sector Accelerates Investments in Network Visibility to Cope with Telework Security Risks

• Federal agencies across the US have increased deployment of network visibility solutions
• Most IT leaders equate network visibility to a robust cybersecurity posture
• Automated threat detection is an essential feature of a network visibility solution, according to 24% of IT leaders in the federal sector

93% of federal IT leaders believe greater network visibility facilitates greater network security. With most federal employees currently teleworking, agencies across the US have increased deployment of network visibility solutions.

The results come from a custom blind online survey completed in August and September 2020 by Market Connections for Riverbed, a network performance vendor. The research was compound with 200 federal government IT decision-makers and influencers from across the United States. Researchers sought to properly assess the state and impact of network visibility on performance, productivity, and security in increasingly complex network environments.

A key finding from the report is that almost all IT leaders in the federal sector believe that greater network visibility facilitates greater network security. In fact, 93% of them said network visibility is the foundation of cybersecurity.

“IT leaders are prioritizing cybersecurity and recognize network visibility can improve their security posture,” the report’s authors say. “Teleworking has spurred faster deployment of network visibility and it is here to stay,” the report notes.

Asked to name an essential feature of a network visibility solution, 24% of respondents said automated threat detection, followed by advanced reporting features according to 14%, and automated alerting, cited by 13%.

90% of federal employees are currently teleworking, and 86% plan to telework at least part-time after the pandemic. 81% say increasing telework accelerated their agency’s deployment of network visibility solutions.

“Lack of visibility into agency networks and the proliferation of apps and endpoints designed to improve productivity and collaboration expands the potential attack surface for cyberthreats,” the researchers said.

Respondents ranked cybersecurity as their agency’s top priority that can be improved through better network visibility.

Bitdefender’s Network Traffic Security Analytics (NTSA) boasts breach detection capabilities that extend to every endpoint in the enterprise network. By focusing on the network behavior of endpoints, it can protect devices with limited or no built-in security capabilities and no endpoint security agent running on top. Using network traffic as its source of information, NTSA detects threats immediately as endpoints deviate from normal behavior, whether due to an external source or an internal malicious attack. Detection is effective against both generic and advanced persistent threats, as well as threats never seen before. Incident alerts are automatically correlated and triaged for greater efficacy in security operations and improved incident investigation. The integration with Bitdefender GravityZone enables autonomous responses to remediate security incidents quickly and efficiently.