Multi-Signal Managed Detection and Response for U.S. State and Local Governments

Prevent services and critical infrastructure from operational disruption with 24/7 threat detection, investigation and containment that secures your important services

State and local government agencies carry a significant burden of responsibility in securing and protecting residents’ personal information and ensuring that critical infrastructure and services are not disrupted by cyberattacks. Over the past few years local governments have faced hundreds of attacks from threat actors. The goal of threat actors is to expose residents’ sensitive information or shut down critical infrastructure such as 911 call centers and water treatment facilities.

At the U.S. federal government level, the State and Local Government Cybersecurity Act (S. 2520) was passed to provide more resources to help local leaders prevent and recover from cyberattacks, as local governments are becoming targeted more frequently by hackers and other cyber criminals.

State and local government agencies have an increasingly complex set of challenges when it comes to protecting sensitive information and critical infrastructure as they strive to connect and efficiently serve their citizens with modern services. With over 90,000 U.S. local government units serving millions of citizens who place an immense amount of trust in their local government agencies to provide essential services while safeguarding their personally identifiable information (PII), it’s no wonder that American state and local governments are an attractive target for cybercriminals.

The onset of existing geopolitical tensions at the forefront is prompting state and local government agencies to focus on their ability to prevent, withstand, and recover from cyberattacks. Local leaders have become more concerned about growing social engineering attacks and about increasingly sophisticated nation-state activities potentially directed against them. This puts pressure on state and local government agencies to prioritize the protection of services and data from cyber threats and rely on top elected and appointed officials to understand the unique cyber threats that they face.

Unfortunately, many state and local government agencies still have security resource constraints, driving them to deprioritize their cybersecurity program. At the same time, cybersecurity talent shortages have plagued state and local governments for years. If their systems are compromised, it can lead to the loss of sensitive data, financial loss, and disruption of essential services. Additionally, cyberattacks on government agencies can impact public trust and confidence in these organizations.

As a result, state and local officials must take action to protect the critical assets from attack, understand the gaps between the actual cybersecurity practices of local governments and the cyber threat landscape, and understand the barriers that occur when developing, and implementing a cybersecurity program.

Off the heels of the 2020 U.S. Census, the International City/County Management Association (ICMA)¹ released a report on local government cybersecurity and identified the five key reasons these governments are targeted. 

1. There are 90,075 local government agencies across the U.S. These units provide services to citizens such as public safety services (e.g., police, fire, emergency medical), education, libraries, highway building and maintenance, utilities, welfare programs, recreation, transportation services, public works, municipal courts, elections, and healthcare.

2. Local governments store a significant amount of sensitive information, especially personally identifiable information (PII) such as names, addresses, driver’s license numbers, credit card numbers, social security numbers, medical information, legal documents and financial records that are related to legal proceedings in the court system, voter data such as voting history and registration records related to elections, and contractual, billing, and financial information of the government agencies themselves.

3. Local governments often have inadequate cyber defenses, which limit the government agency’s ability to defend itself against cyberattacks deployed by opportunistic and nation-state threat actors, malicious insiders, and hacktivists.

4. Local governments operate under financial constraints that limit their ability to acquire and implement sophisticated cybersecurity technology, policies, and practices. Furthermore, local governments are unable to compete with the private sector in hiring and retaining skilled cybersecurity staff.

5. As local governments seek to create smart cities and connect platforms and devices to optimize services, create efficiencies, and connect with their constituents, the use of Internet of Things (IoT) devices increases the attack surface, making them more vulnerable to cyberattacks.

Although cybersecurity awareness gains traction with top elected and appointed officials, cybersecurity teams continue to find themselves under-resourced against today’s threat landscape. Compounding this challenge is the increasing speed and precision with which threat actors accomplish their objectives against state and local government agencies.

There are several steps that state and local government agencies can take to protect themselves against cyberattacks. Some of these include:

At eSentire We Support State and Local Government Agencies By:

• Preventing operational disruption of internal and constituent-facing services through a combination of 24/7 Managed Detection and Response, Managed Risk Services, and Incident Response Services
• Ensuring that any regulatory penalties and third-party costs associated with data breaches are minimized
• Ensuring your government agency remains compliant with stringent cybersecurity compliance and regulatory mandates
• Reducing your business risk by helping your team identify your critical sources of value, discover existing vulnerabilities, and address them based on what would have the worst impact to your organization
• Protecting your data and citizen data from ransomware attacks, third-party risk, data theft or exposure, and insider threats

Whether your assets are stored in the cloud, on-premises, or in a hybrid environment, we detect and contain threats that other MDR providers miss. Our global 24/7 SOCs have discovered instances of ransomware gangs targeting our state and local government agency customers and have interrupted their activities before they could establish a foothold by:

• Using endpoint protection to prevent the disabling of defenses
• Detecting malicious administrative activity through remote access tools using proprietary machine learning algorithms
• Blocking active attempts to deploy user credential collection tools, malware payloaders, and multiple ransomware attacks

Avoid the Threat of Downtime and Disruption of Critical Government Services

Ransomware has become a topic of discussion globally as cybersecurity leaders grapple with the magnitude and impact of this threat. Over the past 2-3 years, adversaries have shifted to using Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) and sophisticated social engineering techniques to deploy highly targeted cyberattacks.

Successful attacks unfold in mere hours from Initial Access to data exfiltration and ransomware deployment, making the time to detect and time to contain critical factors in building an effective cybersecurity program.

Unless you’re prepared to defend against modern ransomware, these attacks can result in your organization being locked out of mission-critical systems and applications for days or even weeks. The resulting downtime can be detrimental to businesses, driving many CEOs to pay the ransom.

Adversaries will continue to evolve their tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) to fulfill their objectives and deploy ransomware. Ultimately, the difference between protection and disruption comes down to the speed at which you can identify and contain a cyberattack.

eSentire Cybersecurity Services Portfolio

It’s critical to employ a multi-layered defense strategy to prevent ransomware from disrupting state and local government agencies such as the exfiltration of sensitive PII data— this is why 24/7 Multi-Signal MDR is an important part of your cyber defense strategy. With MDR, government agencies can quickly and accurately detect cyberattacks and respond in a timely and effective manner. This can help prevent damage to their systems and the loss of sensitive data, and minimize the disruption to essential services.

Additionally, MDR can provide government agencies with the expertise and resources they need to effectively defend against cyber threats without having to invest in and manage their own in-house security teams. eSentire’s cybersecurity services portfolio is designed to prevent breaches, simplify security and minimize your business risk. We provide around-the-clock threat protection that is proactive, personalized and cost-effective.

Managed Detection and Response Services that Meet Cybersecurity Insurance Requirements

eSentire’s Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services have been specifically designed to rapidly identify and contain advanced threats in order to reduce cyber risk. We maintain partnerships with leading cyber insurance providers as an MDR provider of choice and offer complete threat protection that meets insurance requirements and can reduce policyholder costs for state and local governments who are already grappling with budget constraints. Underwriters at cyber insurance organizations are looking to reduce policyholder risk and many times require policyholders to work with MDR providers like eSentire to develop and implement strong cybersecurity controls and governance.

Gain Confidence, Control & Expertise

Managed Risk
Services

TAKE CONTROL OF
CYBER RISK

Strategic services including Vulnerability Management, vCISO and Managed Phishing & Security Awareness Training to identify gaps, build defensive strategies, operationalize risk mitigation and continuously advance your security program.

Managed Detection and Response

PREVENT THREATS BECOMING BUSINESS DISRUPTING EVENTS

We deliver Response + Remediation you can trust. By combining our cutting-edge XDR platform, 24/7 threat hunting and security operations leadership, we hunt and disrupt known and unknown threats before they impact your business.

Digital Forensics and Incident Response

BE READY WITH THE WORLD'S FASTEST THREAT SUPPRESSION

Battle-tested Incident Commander level expertise, crime scene reconstruction and digital forensics investigations that can bear scrutiny in a court of law. The world’s fastest threat suppression with a 4-hour SLA available with our IR Retainer.

eSentire MDR Features Include:

Why State and Local Governments Choose eSentire

Put Your Business Ahead of Disruption

• Recognized - The Authority in Managed Detection and Response
• Simple - We absorb the complexity of cybersecurity so you can prioritize your operations
• Scalable - Industry’s most powerful machine learning XDR Cloud Platform can ingest data at the pace and scale of your business
• Precise - We’re on the cutting-edge of attacker Tactics, Techniques and Procedures mitigating your risk of being breached
• Fast - Extreme time to value as you will be fully operational within weeks
• Responsive - We own the R in MDR to provide extensive response capabilities and threat hunting around the clock
• Compliance - Our 24/7 Global SOCs leverage proven runbooks which include plays to manage issues and reporting for PCI DSS, CCPA, GDPR, HIPAA, as well as state-level rules such as NYCRR 500.
• Cost-Effective - 24/7 threat protection, detection and response at a fraction of the cost of DIY security programs
• Complete - Multi Signal Coverage and comprehensive security services support
• Team - Cyber Risk Advisor + SOC Cyber Analyst and Elite Threat Hunters on guard for your business 24/7
• Results States and Local Governments Can Expect:
  • ~50% reduction in total cost of ownership (TCO) for threat detection and response
  • 50%+ additional coverage on top of commodity threat intelligence, leveraging proprietary technology and our food manufacturing network of customers
  • 9% reduction in threat detection and containment times from global averages