In our interconnected world, any technology outage or incident that degrades system performance can have a huge ripple effect. Several high-profile security incidents over the past year have highlighted the need for the Federal government to maintain a more sophisticated security posture. The White House’s May 2021 Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity calls for “bold changes and significant investments in order to defend the vital institutions that underpin the American way of life.” Additionally, Federal agencies are required to refocus their cybersecurity priorities, such as increased attention to continuous monitoring and high-impact activities referred to as “red teaming” and zero trust programs.
Organizations must integrate security throughout their service offerings, while retaining the flexibility to adapt to changing business needs. This is an organizational imperative, essential to ensuring that government agencies can continue to achieve their missions. Government and commercial organizations alike must also adapt their security management priorities to new or changing threats, such as the supply chain attacks that occupied so much attention in early 2021 or the increasing frequency and disruptive impact of ransomware attacks.
Protect Critical Infrastructure with Forward-Thinking Investments
Cognosante leads with security in all our customer engagements—it’s the way we ensure mission success. With this in mind, we asked our experts in cybersecurity, information technology, and cloud services to summarize how Cognosante helps customers achieve their missions, leading with security and “being cyber smart.”
Since cybersecurity landscapes can change overnight, we constantly optimize our security posture through strategic, forward-thinking investments in cybersecurity tools and end user controls. These include, but aren’t limited to, URL filtering, two factor authentication, geo-fencing, password vaults, PC and Mac imaging, e-mail continuity, and Microsoft 365 back-ups. According to Douglas Neff, Cognosante’s Chief Information Officer, and Cybersecurity Executive of the Year Finalist for the 2021 WashingtonExec’s Pinnacle Awards, these thoughtful investments “enabled the company to seamlessly transition employees to remote work in less than five days during the COVID-19 pandemic, and do so in a way that complied fully with Federal contracting requirements.” Our solutions are simple yet nimble, enabling us to maintain security without compromising employee productivity.
But no organization can go it alone when it comes to security. Cognosante pursues partnerships that strengthen the company’s ability to respond and recover from cyber-attacks, and proactively takes steps to protect sensitive data and systems and ensure business continuity. Stephen Gantz, Cognosante’s Chief Information Security and Privacy Officer notes that “This includes partnering with the government to share information on threats and security incidents to help improve the ability of Federal agencies and government contractors to detect and respond effectively to attacks.”
Build Secure, Intelligent, Cloud-Based Solutions
Bryan Dyal, Director of Network and Systems Engineering states, “The intelligent, cloud-based solutions we build and deliver protect users and create a vigilant posture against all threats that can disrupt day-to-day operations. We monitor our systems proactively to make informed decisions when we deal with incidents, so we’re at the forefront of security and privacy technology.”
Although Cognosante is platform-agnostic related to solution development, we maintain partnerships with Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, all authorized to operate at the FedRAMP Moderate and FedRAMP High baseline levels for specific platform services and regions. Our approach to solution security architecture, deployment, and operations is optimized for the cloud and meets government-wide and agency-specific standards.
According to Ben Grafton, Vice President of Cloud Engineering, ”When we architect in a modern paradigm, using innovative solutions like serverless environments means we can maximize value for our customers while minimizing system vulnerabilities.” Key to our solutions is that we encourage business and system owners to adopt a cloud-first strategy using our proven and disciplined methodology, Cognosante Cloud Foundations (CCF).
Instill Governance into all Solutions
Cognosante’s cloud migration experts (including certified architects) integrate leading-edge technologies, repeatable processes, best practices rooted in Agile, SAFe®, ISO 20000/ISO 9001/27001/HITRUST certifications, and other value-added tools and utilities. The result is not just the implementation of a cloud solution, but a strategy that will enhance an agency’s mission effectiveness now and into the future. We also ensure thorough documentation and rigorous execution of our controls. These efforts yielded successful audits for ISO 20000, ISO 27001, and HITRUST, giving our customers the confidence that sensitive data across sectors is handled with the utmost care.
Anticipate the Cybersecurity Needs of Tomorrow
A thoughtful and strategic approach to cybersecurity requires companies to prepare for an ever-changing landscape. For example, Cognosante’s threat detection tools are powered by Artificial Intelligence that learns and evolves to keep pace with emerging threats. In addition, we continue to recruit and develop talented cybersecurity professionals. The opportunities for growth and innovation are exciting, and we look forwarding to expanding our team as we prepare for the future.
Our information security, cloud, and network and systems engineers are responsible for the operational security of an IT infrastructure that supports mission-critical work in the defense, healthcare, information technology, and business process outsourcing sectors. Learn more about career opportunities in cybersecurity with Cognosante.
Game-changing. Relentless. Passionate. Cognosante produces powerful results for our customers and the communities they serve.