The Vulnerabilities in Government Cybersecurity

The United States government manages a vast amount of sensitive data across numerous departments, including defense, healthcare, finance, and more. One would naturally expect strong government cybersecurity measures, given the nature of this information. However, globally, government cybersecurity often falls behind what is seen in the private sector.

Government ranked third in the most targeted industry last year according to our State of Ransomware figures, with a total of ninety-six attacks representing a 54% increase over 2022 figures. Although the government entities in the USA were the most targeted, cybercriminals chose to attack countries all over the world including Dominican Republic, Kuwait and Chile.

Effective cybersecurity can be deemed difficult to implement for governments partially due to the extensive attack surface created by the interconnected nature of government networks. When you combine thousands of entry points into these systems with the potential for human errors and vulnerabilities, the risk of exploitation increases significantly. Cybercriminals can potentially target hundreds of thousands of avenues to gain access to different parts of the federal network. Even if only a fraction of these entry points have vulnerabilities, it still provides opportunities for unauthorized intrusion.

To illustrate the scale of these vulnerabilities, consider bug bounty programs. Since 2016, ethical hackers, also known as bug bounty hunters, have identified and reported over 26,000 confirmed security vulnerabilities to the Department of Defense (DOD) through its vulnerability disclosure program. This amounts to more than 5,000 issues reported annually for just DOD systems. When you expand this to encompass the entire federal landscape, it is highly likely that the total number of vulnerabilities in existence exceeds six figures.

Another example that illustrates this issue is the cyberattack on IFX Networks. IFX Networks serves as the primary national IT infrastructure and telecommunications provider for the Colombian government. During the attack, hackers compromised IFX Networks’ systems, resulting in disruptions across more than thirty government websites. This had severe consequences, including the shutdown of healthcare data access in Argentina and the paralysis of over two million legal cases in Colombia. To explore this overall issue ourselves, we have done a brief bit of research into the attack surface.

There are numerous platforms and services available that can determine if usernames, emails, and passwords have been exposed in leaked databases. However, cybercriminals have created their own compilations of this leaked data without removing personally identifiable information and use it maliciously. We gained access to two such illicit databases and performed a broad search across both for any domains containing the string “gov”.

The first result returned 18,366,853 results, with each record containing different column types.

The second result returned 147,700 results, also with each record containing different column types.

Another aspect we will briefly examine is the prevalence of web pages featuring dynamic content, which cybercriminals might potentially target and assess. To illustrate this concept, we have created a straightforward search engine query that yields login, registration, and search components.

We specifically chose these keywords because web pages meeting these criteria frequently involve GET or POST-based parameters that either fetch or transmit data to a web server. Cybercriminals typically audit these parameters to identify potential vulnerabilities arising from inadequate input sanitization.

This search engine query generated more than 950,000,000 results, primarily influenced by the keywords employed and the content indexed by Google. A systematic examination of these web pages would inevitably lead cybercriminals to discover a vulnerable component.

Government cybersecurity is ultimately a game for cybercriminals, requiring persistence and probability. They have a multitude of potential access points to exploit, ranging from subdomains and legacy platforms to vulnerabilities within the human aspect of systems. Motivated hackers will relentlessly search for vulnerabilities in the federal attack surface, knowing that the sensitive data at stake provides a strong incentive for theft.

As demonstrated above, hacking into federal systems can be surprisingly straightforward, highlighting the urgent need for modernization and advanced monitoring.

This is where anti data exfiltration solutions (ADX) come into play. ADX addresses these cybersecurity challenges by providing continuous visibility through behavioral analytics. It has the capability to detect anomalies in real-time, uncover unauthorized data exfiltration, and prevent cyberattacks including ransomware and extortion.

If you’re part of a federal department or agency, we encourage you to reach out today so we can work with you to secure your data.

Our solutions provide comprehensive protection against foreign threats, including IP addresses, ASNs (Autonomous System Numbers), and locations, enabling secure usage of Chromebooks, iOS devices, and Android devices.

Contact us now to learn more about how BlackFog can be your trusted partner in safeguarding government networks and data against both domestic and foreign threats.