Government and Public Sector Cybersecurity Services

We are helping the federal government, state and local organizations, and nonprofit entities transform IT risk, cybersecurity and data privacy for now, next and beyond.

Related topics Government and Public Sector Cybersecurity Risk Supply chain

The team

Scott Smith

Scott Smith

EY US Government and Public Sector Cybersecurity Partner/Principal

Gary Winch

Gary Winch

Principal, Government and Public Sector Cybersecurity, Ernst & Young LLP

Scott Feigenbaum

Scott Feigenbaum

Managing Director, Government and Public Sector Cybersecurity, Ernst & Young LLP

Featured thinking

Key trends in federal cybersecurity investment

Scott Smith 5 Apr 2023
Security guard watching monitors in control room

What EY can do for you | Understanding cybersecurity in the public sector | Cybersecurity legislation | Zero trust | Why EY | Team | Contact

What EY can do for you

The EY Government and Public Sector (GPS) cybersecurity team is designed to scale to the most complex needs and span the full end-to-end cyber transformation journey. We help our clients from the very beginning stages of their cyber strategy through the operational delivery of their cybersecurity mission. We work with clients to address various aspects of cyber transformation, including:

How federal agencies are reducing cybersecurity risk

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Cybersecurity in higher education

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  • Cybersecurity strategy, risk, compliance and resilience

    The EY cybersecurity team aims to help government agencies from the very beginning of their cyber strategy through the continued maintenance, compliance and resilience of the transformation journey.

    Cybersecurity strategy

    • Capability assessment and benchmarking 
      • Cyber program assessments
      • Zero trust program assessments (aligning to the DHS Zero Trust Maturity Model)
      • Cyber benchmarking and performance analysis
    • Strategy, planning and transformation
      • Cyber strategy and road map
      • Cyber operating model and organizational design

    Cyber risk management and insights

    • Cyber risk quantification
    • Supply chain risk management
    • Risk management framework (RMF)

    Cyber compliance and resilience

    • Compliance program readiness and remediation
      • Representative regulations and standards include NIST 800-53, ISO 27001, HIPAA, FISMA/FedRAMP, CMMC, PCI, GDPR, CCPA
    • Cyber war-gaming and tabletop exercises
    • Cyber crisis management and recovery surge support

  • Data protection and privacy

    EY data protection and privacy services help government agencies stay current with leading practices in data security and data privacy, as well as comply with regulation in a constantly evolving threat environment and regulatory landscape.

    Data protection and privacy services

    EY data protection (pdf) and privacy services and approaches are designed to help organizations protect their information over the full data life cycle — from acquisition, to disposal. Data protection services include:

    Data protection strategy and transformation

    • Data protection strategy
    • Data governance strategy
    • Policies and procedures
    • Program governance and business alignment
    • Program risk assessment and remediation
    • Data protection program strategy and road map design
    • Data security strategy and architecture
    • Cloud strategy

    High-value information asset (HVIA) protection

    • Data classification models and strategies
    • Data labeling and tagging methods and approaches
    • Data handling methods and approaches
    • HVIA identification across business units and functions
    • Insider threat assessment and protection
    • Application and system data assessments
    • Data discovery scanning

  • Identity and access management

    EY identity and access management (IAM) services help government agencies manage the life cycle of digital identities for users, systems and services by providing organizations a view of who has access to what resources. IAM focus areas include:

    IAM strategy

    • IAM business case definition
    • IAM assessments and road maps

    Access management

    • Single sign-on
    • Multi-factor authentication
    • Password self-service
    • Application programming interface (API) access control
    • Public key infrastructure (PKI) and certificate-based authentication
    • Fine-grained entitlement management and authorization

    Identity governance and administration

    • Access requests and provisioning
    • Access certifications
    • Segregation of duties
    • Application onboarding
    • User life cycle management
    • Role-based access management
    • Enterprise identity repository

    Privileged access management

    • Password vaulting and rotation
    • Secrets management
    • Session brokering
    • Privileged account governance
    • Endpoint least privilege
    • Threat analytics

  • Cybersecurity architecture, engineering and emerging technologies

    EY cybersecurity architecture, engineering and emerging technologies services are designed to help government agencies protect their enterprises from adversaries that seek to exploit weaknesses in the design and operation of their technical security controls, including disruptive technologies such as cloud computing, blockchain and the internet of things (IoT). Focus areas include:

    Architecture and engineering

    • Assessment, design and road map
    • Secure standards and pattern design
    • Security engineering transformation
    • Technical implementation and integration

    Emerging technology

    • Cloud security
    • Operational technology (OT)
    • Cyber automation
    • Cyber analytics

  • Next-generation security operations and response

    EY next-generation security operations and response (NGSOR) services help build a more secure and trusted working world by helping government agencies protect their organizations with proven strategic and tactical approaches to defend, detect, respond and recover from cyber attacks. EY NGSOR services include:

    Security operations center (SOC) transformation

    • SOC assessment, strategy and road map
    • SOC build and transformation
    • SOC technology requirements analysis and selection
    • SOC governance, playbooks, metrics and reporting
    • Managed threat detection and response services

    Cyber threat resiliency and intelligence

    • Cyber threat resiliency assessment
    • Threat intelligence as a service

    Incident readiness and response

    • Incident readiness and maturity assessments
    • Cyber crisis simulation (e.g., tabletop exercises)
    • Incident response governance, playbooks, metrics and reporting
    • Incident containment, eradication and recovery assistance
    • Cyber incident postmortem analysis

    Attack and penetration testing

    • Internal, external, wireless, application and mobile attack and penetration testing
    • Red Team threat assessments
    • Cloud security assessments
    • Product security assessments

    Application security

    • Application security assessments
    • Secure application architecture assessments and threat modeling
    • Application security program build
    • Secure development, security and operations (DevSecOps)

    Vulnerability management (VM)

    • Cyber exposure assessment
    • VM program improvement strategy and road map
    • Scanning technology implementation and enhancement
    • Critical vulnerability response

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Understanding the public sector landscape

With cyber threats increasing at an alarming rate, there has been a whirlwind of government activity related to cybersecurity. Viewing cybersecurity government guidance through many lenses will help agencies strengthen their cybersecurity efforts — enabling the strategies, architectural models and investments to move forward.

77%

of companies saw increases in disruptive attacks in last 12 months, up from 59% in 2020.

56%

of executives surveyed do not know whether their defenses are strong enough for hackers’ new strategies.

50%

of executives view cloud security as a significant barrier to realizing cloud value

2000

Increase of OT target attacks since 2018

  • Data source

    EY Global Information Security Survey (GISS) 2021, Govtech, PWC

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Zero trust in the public sector

Our effective cyber program assessment and zero trust strategy practices directly translate to business security needs and protect the business applications even when the perimeter is breached and the network is compromised. The following are the crucial steps to consider while devising a zero trust strategy:

  • Define the business drivers and objectives that influence security resources
  • Assess the current cybersecurity architecture against zero trust maturity models to evaluate the gaps
  • Develop a short- and long-term strategic road map for embracing a zero trust architecture incrementally
  • Achieve compatibility with the existing service infrastructure and application landscape
  • Build business cases to justify the security transformation

We have expanded upon the Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (DHS CISA) maturity model to ease the development of a road map to advance zero trust architecture. Specifically, we align the DHS CISA zero trust assessment to the EY cyber program assessment to enable mapping to multiple regulatory requirements (e.g., NIST 800-53), benchmarking against commercial sectors and alignment with “battle-tested” project charters. 

Why EY? 

  • Experience successfully creating transformational cyber, analytics and technology strategies for Fortune 500 companies, large federal agencies, state and local government organizations, and nonprofit organizations
  • Team of 11,000 cyber and risk professionals throughout the world and an extensive network of vendor and technology alliances 
  • Highly experienced project teams trained in cybersecurity transformation and implementation, including more than 1,600 professionals with active US security clearances 
  • Globally recognized and award-winning next-generation cyber capabilities in a business-led, agile fashion
  • Leaders in multiple analyst ranking reports, including recognition by Forrester as a top-ranked strategic leader and information security consulting provider
  • Purpose-driven culture of building a better working world that focuses on client outcomes by utilizing diverse high-performing teams, helping our clients find better ways of working, challenging today’s methods and unlocking innovation 

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