Tag Archives: digital experience

Transforming Public Sector Efficiency: A Two-Pronged Approach to Modernization

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Throughout the history of government technology adoption, agencies have continually adapted to the ever-changing technological landscape. With the increasing demand for digital governance, the drive to modernize both the workforce and the citizen experiences is more important than ever. This dual focus ensures that agencies can not only improve their internal operations but also foster stronger, more responsive relationships with the public. This means fulfilling their overall missions easier than ever while rising to meet the ever-growing expectations of the people they serve.

Modernizing the Workforce

Government employees are the backbone of public service, working day in and day out to ensure that citizens receive the support they need. As the demands on these employees grow more complex, it’s crucial that we provide them not just with advanced tools, but with a work environment that fosters collaboration and encourages ongoing learning. The shift isn’t just about adopting new technologies; it’s about creating a culture where innovation thrives, and where every team member feels empowered to contribute to the agency’s mission.

With a rising demand for digital services, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, public sector employees have faced unprecedented challenges. From adopting new technologies to managing complex workflows to rapidly adapting to this surge in service demands, their roles have become more fundamental than ever. This period highlighted the importance of equipping government workers with the skills and tools needed to thrive in a digital-first environment.

To navigate these challenges effectively, agencies must prioritize seamless collaboration and strategic work management. This involves adopting tools that enhance communication, align projects with agency goals, and provide transparency into progress. We’ve seen that by fostering a culture of collaboration and transparency, agencies can ensure that every project contributes to the broader mission, empowering employees to deliver results more efficiently.

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Moreover, modernization also means streamlining outdated processes that have long hindered efficiency. For example, enrollment processes have traditionally been slow and cumbersome, often relying on paper-based systems. By modernizing these workflows through automation and digital tools, agencies can reduce administrative burdens, improve accuracy, and speed up service delivery. This allows government employees to focus on more strategic tasks, ultimately enhancing the overall employee experience. These enrollment processes are not simply internal agency constraints but also form a core element of the drive to modernize the citizen experience as well.

Modernizing Citizen Experiences

In today’s digital world, citizens expect the same level of service from government agencies as they do from their favorite online retailers. This means that government websites and online services need to be intuitive, accessible, and responsive to the needs of every user. By prioritizing user-centered design and using data to inform decisions, agencies can ensure that their digital platforms are not only functional but also welcoming. It’s about making every interaction count, whether it’s a simple information request or a more complex service transaction.

It is often the case that the online presence of a government agency is the first point of contact for residents seeking information or services. However, many government websites still struggle with outdated designs and inconsistent content, which can negatively affect public perception and engagement. This is why creating those meaningful, personalized experiences is an integral part of digital transformation in the public sector. By doing so, agencies can create more cohesive, accessible, and engaging digital services that resonate with citizens. This approach ensures that online interactions are intuitive and aligned with the diverse needs of the public, leading to higher satisfaction and trust in government services.

Furthermore, in an era where information is consumed rapidly across multiple channels, the ability to quickly create, manage, and distribute content is crucial. Delays in content delivery can result in missed opportunities for engagement and a failure to address the immediate needs of citizens. By increasing content velocity—improving internal workflows, streamlining content management, and ensuring that content is tailored to specific audiences—agencies can more effectively communicate with the public, delivering prompt and relevant information that enhances citizen engagement.

Conclusion

The challenges facing government agencies today are significant, but they also present opportunities for innovation and growth. Modernizing the workforce and citizen experiences are two sides of the same coin in the journey toward a more efficient and responsive government. By adopting strategies that streamline work management, modernize enrollment processes, enhance web experiences, and increase content velocity, agencies can better serve their citizens and build a stronger connection between government and the public it serves. This dual approach to modernization is essential for navigating the challenges of the digital age and fulfilling the mission of serving citizens effectively.

View our Adobe webinar series to learn more about creating experience-driven government services. 

Protecting DNS Infrastructure from Resource Exhaustion Attacks

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The Domain Name System (DNS) functions as the phonebook of the internet. It serves to translate IP addresses into readable domain names, enabling end users to access web applications and application programming interfaces (APIs) through fast and reliable internet connections. DNS infrastructure was designed as the building block of the internet, not as a security control point, resulting in DNS servers being viewed as an easy target vulnerable to attack. Protecting DNS servers is critical since a threat to an organization’s servers also has the capacity to impact enterprise operations, profitability and trust with end users.

Threats to DNS Infrastructure

In the evolving landscape of DNS infrastructure, threats pose serious risks to the speed, availability and operation to enterprises’ DNS services. Among these threats are DNS floods, which overwhelm servers with a barrage of requests for resources, effectively rendering them unavailable to legitimate queries. The 2023 Akamai Attack Superhighway State of the Internet report underscores the increasing concern surrounding DNS denial of service attacks across various industry sectors, a trend that is expected to continue to escalate in the future. With DNS infrastructure handling up to seven trillion DNS requests a day, multistage attacks have become the primary mode of attack for the modern threat actor. Through collaborative efforts, attackers have found increasing success by working together and combining different tools during a single attack.

Resource Exhaustion Attacks

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Resource exhaustion presents in both people and technology. Exhaustion in people is often the result of staffing challenges, lean crews managing multiple aspects of the network while simultaneously defending against attacks. If one aspect of the network falls under attack, it takes away from their ability to manage and oversee other areas. On the technological side, resource exhaustion attacks seek to overload one piece of the network—a DNS server, a hardware tool, a next-generation firewall—to the point where it can no longer function because it was not designed to handle a heavy amount of traffic. This style of attack can last anywhere from a few minutes to a continuous attack that lasts for days.

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), a type of resource exhaustion attack, simulates thousands of computers attempting to access the same resource simultaneously until it can no longer function. The website under attack becomes unavailable due to the sudden onslaught of false traffic that it is unable to manage. DNS is a common target for these DDoS style attacks because the critical services of websites and applications are reliant on the process of domain names translating to IP addresses being uninterrupted. Mitigating this form of malicious traffic presents a challenge, as these servers typically only have access to the IP address of the resolver. Consequently, any attempt to limit traffic based on this address usually results in false positives.

Securing DNS Infrastructure

By implementing a reverse proxy solution that protects on-prem and hybrid DNS infrastructure, organizations can defend existing DNS hardware tools from globally distributed attacks like resource exhaustion and DDoS. Organizations can ensure access to online services and applications remain available by re-routing traffic through an advanced DNS proxy server and filtering out malicious traffic during attacks in real time. An intelligent reverse proxy solution that deploys through an authoritative DNS change made in a domain controller and does not require replacing any existing tools helps organizations identify legitimate traffic from attack traffic. A solution with proactive security policies eliminates time spent on configuring individual settings or having to change them over time. Organizations that use hardware DNS receive the advantage of continued availability and enhanced security of existing investments and solutions that are critical to their network without having to make any major network adjustments. Through real-time monitoring of DNS infrastructure health and performance, organizations can increase the reliability of routing, security and availability of their existing DNS hardware solutions.

With the increase in remote work in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become harder to detect and prevent resource exhaustion attacks. DNS resolution for website and application performance is critical, organizations must invest in adequate DNS infrastructure rather than relying on two or three servers to connect with end users. Adoption of a proactive approach that can identify and mitigate vulnerabilities at each stage of the data journey is pivotal to ensuring that DNS infrastructure is secure amid the evolving threat landscape.

Learn more about how to protect your enterprise from resource exhaustion attacks with Akamai Shield NS53, a bidirectional reverse proxy service.

Reaching Customers with Client-Driven Solutions

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One of the biggest challenges of government service is how their personnel interact with customers. Adequately supporting customers can be tricky, especially when serving people with vastly different needs. So, it is vital that government providers know how to support individuals with accurate, time-effective aid for their specific issues – for example, a mental health or public safety crisis.

Equal and Equitable Access

ConcernCenter/AWS Customer Experience Blog Embedded Image 2023What is the best way to provide care? Offering constituents and customers equal and equitable access and care means government employees need to be prepared to handle a variety of problems. First, the experience of each individual should be at the forefront of every interaction; customers should be treated with respect to their wishes and goals. Second, making the customer feel valued and heard is critical in every encounter. Customer service should not be transactional, but relational. By building trust with clients, agencies establish value now and for the agency’s future. Third, service should take into account who the individual receiving the assistance is as a person.

A Look at the Customer

Different customers prefer different styles of customer service. For governments, this means addressing the varied needs of a range of customers, including:

  • Students, parents, faculty and staff
  • Veterans
  • Employees
  • Survivors of crime and their families
  • At-risk youth
  • Patients
  • Disabled patients and their families
  • Caregivers
  • Younger generations
  • Older generations

Employees must be prepared to actively support the unique individuals that use their agency or organization. It is vital to identify who the customer is as a person, what resources are accessible to them and what their main concerns may be. This can affect all aspects of the interaction, as organizations need to consider what kind of people are reaching out, and how to best orient their services toward their target audience.

Online Support

With the growing presence of the internet in everyone’s lives, websites should be created in ways that best serve the end-user. There are a few main questions to consider when determining whether consumer-facing websites and services are meeting their intended goals:

  • Who is visiting the website? What is their age group and knowledge level?
  • What is the biggest concern to these customers? What questions are consistently being asked?
  • What results is the customer expecting on the other end of their experience?

All customers visiting a website will have a shared experience. To create a client-driven solution, first identify their ideal user experience. When customers know what questions to ask, when to ask them, and who to ask they can be confident they will receive the correct solutions they need.

Providing a Client-Driven Solution

Customer service should be client-driven, rather than business-driven. A client-driven solution is based around customer concerns. It is written simply, in words customers use every day rather than the organization’s technical jargon.

For government agencies, whose main goal is to be by and for the people, business models should be client-needs focused. In addition, organizations should provide multiple support options for the customer to choose from. This way, if a customer does not feel comfortable with one option, they have other methods of support to utilize. As soon as the customer no longer feels supported, they stop searching for help, which is exactly what we hope they will not do.

Providing client-driven solutions can look like:

  • Reducing confusion by compiling all resources into one accessible place
  • Investing in long-term staff that is experienced with the organization and its processes
  • Providing support options that are available after hours and on weekends
  • Using data analytics to gain insight into when and where support is being accessed
  • Customizing software to center around the customer base’s needs
  • Providing options for services in multiple languages
  • Offering password protection and an emergency click-away button for safety and confidentiality purposes
  • Clearly directing to answers, helpful resources and next steps

By providing client-driven solutions, agencies can build trust with customers that will allow them to more equitably serve the public.

 

ConcernCenter works with businesses, school districts, organizations, institutions, and non-profits to support users and solve common concerns. To learn more about effectively aiding customers, visit Carahsoft’s page to view ConcernCenter’s webinar on customer service.

The Advantage of Electronic Signature Services

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The modern workspace is constantly evolving to keep pace with customer demands. Primarily, the most valuable asset a team may have at its disposal is time. Efficiency the word that keeps organizations running, and the tools a team employs dictates how effective those processes are. When the conversation turns to contracts and signatures, there is only one real solution for the modern business, that being the implementation of electronic signatures. How much more value could electronic signature services be for your team? Let’s discuss the inherent value of such a system.

Change and Efficiency

Adobe Electronic Signature Services Blog Embedded Image 2022Initially the most dramatic change will be the lack of physical documentation. Change can be difficult for any organization; however most electronic signature services provide their API (application programming interface). Some solutions require a purchase or fee to access, while others provide it as a complimentary service. With a technologies API, your team can seamlessly integrate digital document preparation to already existing programs being used daily. This could be anything from a document management service or your team’s primary email application. This ease of access not only promotes more use by your workforce, but also allows them to access virtual documents and PDFs that they already use for other purposes.

Understanding Integrations

With your electronic signature service now integrated into your teams’ applications of choice, each user now has the capability convert any document or contract into an interactable form. This process is fairly simple to do and usually does not need to be repeated once finished per document. The real value now comes from how quickly those contracts can be sent and signed by customers. Electronic signatures provide two major values for you. The freedom for customers to interact and sign contracts from anywhere, at their convenience. As well as additional document security that is inherent with using such a service. Traditionally electronic signatures based their legality off a user’s identification through either a business-related email address or other valid account. However, there are several additional verification methods available to confirm the signer’s identity. These range from knowledge-based authentication to phone verification, to password-based security. These options can usually be freely selected on a document-by-document basis, providing an authenticated audit report for the documents being signed. This creates a situation where not only are contracts being signed more efficiently, but they are also validated beyond what a traditional paper form would be.

Ease of Interaction

In a sense, the largest value add from such a service is the customer’s perspective. Not only are they receiving critical documents moments after they are sent, but they also can interact and sign these forms with minimal effort. Many of these electronic signature services allow customers to interact and sign forms without any type of additional software being required. If the customer has a device that allows access to their professional email, then that customer has the capability to complete and sign the forms in question. In an evolving, modern workplace most individuals have access to a business smart phone, which is the only asset they need to complete a signature process.

Tracking and Management

With so many documents being sent for signature, you might be wondering what options there are in terms of record keeping. Electronic signature services rely very heavily not only legally authenticating the users involved but also with access and document security. Many of these services provide a direct option to store documents perpetually, this allows easy access and a simple way to filter and find whatever form is in question. However, this simply is not the limit of the options available to you. Through an API (application programming interface) they can be curated to do all sorts of things with signed documents. This includes distributing copies of forms into local servers, or alternative storage options that your team already has deployed. The authenticity of these files can be validated at any time once acquired. This also confirms that no additional changes or adjustments have been made to a contract, once its signing process is complete.

 

Many government teams already use email and messaging services to communicate between team members and customers; so why should your contracts be treated any differently? For more information on electronic signatures and services, check out the on-demand webinar, “Refresh Digital Document Workflows with Powerful E-Signature and PDF Capabilities.”

Personalized Digital Experiences in Government

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Personalized customer experiences have been a primary focus of US policy over the last few Administrations. President Trump made it a part of his President Management Agenda, and President Biden released an Executive Order mandating a transformation of the “Federal Customer Experience.” Further policies, including the 21st Century IDEA and the IT Modernization Act, provide additional sources of funding and policy to help governments address these rising customer needs, and while they have been around for a few years, they are still required to be fully implemented. Agencies need to take advantage of this momentum to continue improving citizen experiences and “recommit to being ‘of the people, by the people, [and] for the people” in order to solve the complex 21st century challenges our Nation faces.”

Building on the Foundations

During the COVID-19 pandemic, agencies across the US quickly stepped up and adapted to a rapidly changing world with rapidly changing requests coming from their constituents. Unemployment and labor issues, health and safety concerns, social services, childcare and schooling, and even more all immediately increased in scale for both requests for services as well as requests for reliable information. What was previously done largely in person now had to be done – by necessity – at a distance. Agencies began to lay the digital foundations which were necessary to adapt to this new normal. New landing pages for up-to-date Health information, portals for testing and vaccine distribution, digitized enrollment processes for social services and unemployment insurances, as well as relevant and personalized communications with residents, were all adapted to this new personalization at a distance.

Now that it has been a few years since the beginning of the pandemic, there is an opportunity for agencies to build upon these foundations that have been laid. By making interactions with the government easier, there is a corresponding increase in interactions that can help set the scope of where to move forward. Once a process has been fully digitized the next step would be personalization. Focusing in on the personalization of the customer experience not only promotes the kind of participation in our civic lives that the US was founded on but also promotes equity and accessibility through accounting for the unique needs of people with disabilities.

Adobe Digital Experience Series Blog Embedded Image 2022Personalization and Accessibility

Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the World Wide Web, once said, “The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.” So it should come as no surprise that one of the requirements of the 21st Century IDEA is that as agencies modernize their websites, services, and forms, they must comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) standard that was established in Section 508 of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The following principles are the guiding standards of the WCAG: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust. This means that all these government services should have the ability to be easily viewed and used by anyone with a disability – such as no or limited vision; colorblind; physical, cognitive, or learning disability; and no or limited hearing – as well as any able-bodied residents with limited access to the service in question – such as rural communities, the elderly, or even those with limited bandwidth and/or mobile-only access.

Being truly accessible means more than simply purchasing or developing technology that is accessible itself; it means taking the entire process and thinking about it through the lens of accessibility and personalization. It requires having employees who are responsible for managing the different touchpoints and interactions between the customer and the agency and understanding how these customer journeys can be further personalized. It means delivering content that is individual for each constituent – based on personal needs, preferences, and abilities and each touchpoint and interaction within that journey.

The Future of Personalized Experiences for Government

It should no longer come as a shock that the need for government to provide modern and accessible digital experiences is here to stay. This opportunity for agencies allows for them to incorporate all of these digital foundations, the policies being put out, and the web standards being designed into a truly personalized and accessible digital experience. Look for ways that employees who are responsible for Section 508 and ADA compliance can work hand in hand (and receive funding from) the teams that are responsible for implementing the 21st Century IDEA, Biden’s Executive Order, and all the other associated policies with customer experiences. The future of government experiences is one in which, no matter who you are, where you are, or what you need, you have the freedom to engage in a truly personalized manner with your government.

View Adobe’s webinar to learn more about creating personalized customer-centric digital services. 

New Collaboration Tools to Help Government Agencies Advance Their Digital Operations

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Government agencies have long depended on secure collaboration tools. Now, as these agencies focus on modernization initiatives, they require an integrated solution that can securely manage software development workflows and digital operations.

In addition, these new tools need to drive improved productivity, and support compliance requirements. That’s why Mattermost has invested in enhancing its messaging collaboration platform with new solutions for playbooks, workflow management, task management and tool integrations.

Customizable Playbooks for Recurring Procedures

Many government organizations rely on complex processes to enable their operations. Manual, inconsistent approaches result in errors, omissions and missed steps. Digitizing these processes can increase productivity and improve effectiveness. A proven way to achieve those goals is through playbooks.

Playbooks from Mattermost offer prescribed workflows that streamline and optimize recurring processes. They make any structured process repeatable and predictable through checklists, automated triggers and actions, status dashboards and updates, and retrospective timelines and reports.

As a result, federal agencies can better orchestrate work across teams and tools. They can document complex operations, and they can better support scenarios and use cases that require repeatable and reliable process steps. That way, they can achieve consistent processes, predictable outcomes and continuous improvement.

By taking advantage of these playbooks, agencies across government can:

  • Orchestrate digital processes that span teams, tools and missions – Built-in task checklists and real-time messaging enable all stakeholders to understand what’s in progress and what actions to take next.
  • Improve visibility and quality – Prescribed checklists make sure every team member follows best practices, the first time and every time. Status updates eliminate confusion and ensure stakeholders remain informed on workflows.
  • Streamline tasks with triggers and actions A no-code framework enables teams to automate repetitive work, freeing up time for more strategic priorities.
  • Improve with every iteration Retrospective reports and timelines enable teams to retrace what happened and benefit from key takeaways. Incorporating learnings back into playbooks makes processes more effective and scalable.
  • Integrate and extend – Because playbooks are built on an open source platform, they allow for customization and extensibility. Team members can leverage other tools they’re already using through APIs, plug-ins and an ecosystem of community-built integrations.
  • Maintain tight security – Built-in security and firewalls, as well as secure cloud-deployment options, make sure sensitive data remains protected in a broad range of collaboration scenarios.

Built on a Unified Collaboration Hub

Additional Mattermost capabilities and offerings further support agencies in shifting to digitized operations. For starters, a single command-and-control hub optimizes team collaboration. In addition to playbooks, the platform provides channels for real-time and asynchronous messaging, as well as boards for Kanban-style project and task management. Integrations with an ecosystem of developer-centric applications include GitLab, Jira and Confluence.

High-availability, mission-critical security and privacy provide the information safeguards agencies need. Public sector organizations can deploy the platform on-prem, in air-gapped environments or in a secure cloud to maintain complete control of their data. Strict, customizable access controls help ensure military-grade protections. They also assist organizations in complying with standards such as those associated with HIPAA, FINRA, GDPR and regulatory requirements.

What’s more, a single, flexible licensing mechanism covers multiple networks. Separate teams can benefit from the same tools and practices, even across multiple air-gapped environments.

Finally, these capabilities are available across a number of governmentwide acquisition contracts (GWACs), including NASA Solutions for Enterprise wide Procurement (SEWP). A variety of channel partners can help agencies meet their small-business goals. The platform also meets requirements for the Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) for Section 508 compliance.

Designed for Agency Deployment

Mattermost’s new and enhanced collaboration tools are offered as part of a growing portfolio of solutions specifically designed for government organizations.

As government agencies and defense organizations navigate the shift to always-on digital operations, effective alignment of people, tools and processes can help teams better achieve their missions. By replacing manual tasks, fragmented communication and fragile workflows with digitized, repeatable process frameworks, they can operate more efficiently and effectively to meet changing use cases and demands.

View Our Free Resource, the Mattermost Government Solutions Guide, and learn more about Mattermost at www.mattermost.com

Rethinking Citizen Services for a Digital Experience

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2020 was a year marked by expedited change, as businesses and agencies pivoted to offer remote services and perform remote work. This movement prompted state and local governments to rethink the way they offered citizen services in a rapidly-expanding digital capacity, a trend that is not unexpected. In the most recent National Association of State CIO survey, advancing digital services ranked number two in priorities after cybersecurity. The move towards digital services is thus one that can be capitalized on in the current moment.

Many state and local governments are utilizing the pandemic as a way to implement new technologies, new services, and new means of connecting citizens with their governments. Security and services remain at the forefront of government priorities, and as vaccines roll out and offices reopen, governments now consider how digital citizen services can continue evolving to best suit their citizens’ needs.

Building from Service Success

The pandemic led to state and local governments racing to improve their digital infrastructure in the face of overwhelming usage, yet there is now a chance to improve upon these systems for a post-pandemic future. Agencies who may have once hesitated in applying advanced concepts now see them as a valuable addition to the digital citizen service experience. Chatbots, for example, were utilized to ease pressure on call centers in Vermont who struggled to keep up with citizen questions and demands. Now, chatbots answer more questions and direct more citizens than human employees, and can be trained to respond better as situations change.

Technology such as chatbots can be embraced as a long-term, post-pandemic solution, rather than as a means to solve a temporary problems. These new ideas and products help to rethink the digital citizen experience, as governments look back at what was successful for their agencies during periods of high-volume interactions with citizens. The technologies implemented last year in countless agencies will not disappear with the pandemic. Instead, they should lay the groundwork for rethinking how digital citizen services can best serve those that need them.

Overcoming the Digital Divide

One effect of the pandemic is the exposure of digital inequality or the “digital divide,” where some citizens have access to the latest and cheapest connectivity options while others in underserved parts of a state struggle with aging, slow, or nonexistent internet infrastructure. As technology continues to evolve and services take up more and more broadband, rural state and local communities risk being disconnected as their outdated connectivity options dwindle and languish.

State and local governments have thusly implemented new methods of bridging the digital divide and providing critical citizen services to all. Some states, such as Maine, work to provide broadband connectivity to every public library and university center in the state, allowing citizens to access networks publicly from even parking lots. Others, like Maryland, are rethinking how to provide access to rural or mountainous areas, where fiber may not be installed. Maryland in particular is working to utilize low-orbiting satellite systems scheduled to come online within a year, to bridge the digital divide and give rural citizens a connection to their state and local government. With the pivot to digital citizen services, government agencies can now focus on overcoming a pre-pandemic problem, and making it easier for all in the state to access their services, no matter where they reside.

Rethinking How Services Are Provided

Before the pandemic, digital citizen services were an afterthought to more traditional face-to-face methods. Now, this dichotomy is flipped. Many citizens want to engage not only with digital means of obtaining services, but engage in a timely and convenient manner.

One way to rethink digital citizen services is to create a singular system, where a single account is needed to access anything a citizen requires. Having a central portal system for multiple agencies can streamline citizen’s goals, for whether someone needs to renew their fishing license or create a business. By implementing a central portal, citizens can find what they need, without having to know the structure of their government and pinpoint which agency offers which service.

State governments should also consider making things simpler in not just the way citizens find agencies, but also making it easier to interact with what agencies provide. Programs that auto-renew a driver’s or fishing licenses until a citizen chooses to stop, as Mississippi and Maine have done, streamline what once was a sometimes-complicated process. If such digital services are streamlined now, if they are redesigned to make life and tasks easier for citizens, then they will be utilized more often in the post-pandemic period and eventually become just another fact in digital citizen services.

 

Visit our resource hub to view other resources for the Legacy Modernization webinar series and how governments and technology companies modernizing to improve accessibility and functionality of digital citizen services.

Improving the User Experience by Integrating Security

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What is happening now, in 2021, is forcing government agencies to use their IT in different ways. Tools like VPNs have had a hard time scaling to the amount of traffic being generated when employees are suddenly working from home. It pushes security controls in different directions—onto people’s identities and the endpoints—the machines they use. The most effective security focuses on the security of identities and endpoints and uses that to make access decisions—rather than the user’s physical location or network.

Adopting Technologies More Efficiently

The current environment also means that agencies need the capacity to adopt technologies more quickly. Cloud service providers’ ability to inherit authorities to operate (ATOs) from other cloud service providers is critical to FedRAMP’s success. FedRAMP just has to verify that a company is doing the same as company X is doing before providing an ATO.

By checking those couple boxes, it allows new cloud service providers to quickly get a bunch of controls off their plate and focus on what they do best. In inheriting those ATOs, other cloud service providers can reduce their development and audit time before entering the FedRAMP marketplace. This makes government more efficient and cost effective.

Choosing the Right Security Solutions

Another factor affecting government operations is a zero-trust environment, which particularly affects companies’ developers. Zero trust forces us to examine other signals and factors when making authentication decisions: we especially check the identity of the individual and the system they are using. We ensure that the end points are secure, fully patched, and managed by the organization.

GovForward Blog Series - Okta Embedded ImageIf they aren’t, then we might not actually want to completely deny access. Today’s workforce is highly mobile, and we must take that into account while building applications. If we limit access so tightly that nobody can use it or they need a very specific environment to use it, then our users will find different solutions.

The IT industry has often made the mistake of bolting on security, putting it in the wrong place rather than building it into the system. This can drive users away from better solutions into less secure systems. Zero trust wants to solve for that problem, offering people access to the right information at the right time and building that into our applications.

Improving the User Experience

Okta worked with the Quality Payment Program for the U.S. Digital Service and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. They needed to bring together providers, patients in data registries, and the government; but each group had different needs and usage patterns. We helped them tie the three different backgrounds together to form a single authentication experience.

The users also required a consistent, compliance-based experience because they were working with regulated healthcare data. The regulations set various requirements, such as needing a FIPS 140 validated multifactor authentication. They solved that issue by using a secure token, a soft token on the phone, or another authentication method.

The program also needed to integrate system identities. The access to more data means that we had to do that through APIs, allowing systems to share information with systems in a secure and auditable way. By managing these APIs, CMS was able to ensure that systems and users have access to that data.

Looking into the Future

Agencies will continue to focus on the specific challenges facing employees or constituents and need technical solutions. But, if your solution is not the easiest to use, your users will look for different systems. This is absolutely critical for IT professionals and security teams to understand.  If we continue to bolt on security, then the implications will be far reaching.

We will also see more focus on third-party and enterprise risk. FedRAMP is a risk-based program that is available to all agencies so they can fully understand the risk with using your application and compare that with the risks inside their own work. At the end of the audit, you have a list of risks, your plan of action, and milestones. In the future the third-party risk team will be beefed up as part of security.

Visit our website to learn more about the GovForward: Multicloud Series and FedRAMP through our additional resources.

Top 10 Blog Posts of 2020

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2020 was an unprecedented year with certain trends in technology developing practically overnight. IT solutions such as cybersecurity and workflow automation became more important than ever as many across the nation began working from home. During this time, Government agencies have become more adaptable, security-focused, and driven to ensure the digital experience has and continues to be successful. Here’s a look back at our Top 10 Carahsoft Community Blog posts of 2020 featuring this year’s most popular IT topics.

 

1) IT TRENDS IN GOVERNMENT: The Cloud and Electronic Signatures

Digital experiences are at the center of most services that citizens utilize day-to-day, and throughout government they can impact access to important services, such as healthcare, food aid, and housing. In order to ensure that these services are adequately accessible to the public, proper measures must be taken to make content available across devices, adaptable for use by all users regardless of physical ability, and consistent in appearance.

The best way to achieve digital experiences that adhere to the aforementioned criteria is to utilize the appropriate technology, such as form creation software and electronic signature platforms, which are becoming increasingly prevalent. In this post, Carahsoft’s Senior Product Specialist, Ashley Weston, examines two of Government’s top IT trends to achieving key digital experiences—form creation and e-signatures.

 

2) How Federal Agencies Can Achieve Section 508 Compliance

Technology has enabled users with visual or other impairments to more easily navigate the world around them, and government organizations are increasingly expected to abide by basic digital accessibility standards and to comply with federal requirements.

One such requirement is aimed at federal agencies, ensuring the government’s digital presence is accessible to users with disabilities. Section 508, which is part of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, mandates that all electronic and information technology used by the federal government—including websites, social media, job application portals, and more—must be accessible to the 60 million people in the United States living with disabilities. In this post, Addteq partnered with Atlassian to explain how federal agencies can achieve Section 508 compliance.

 

3) Tips and Tricks to Establishing a Successful Telework Environment

As swaths of organizations in the United States are forced to shutter their workplaces in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, unprecedented numbers of employees are conducting business as usual—from the safety of their homes. Some states have placed restrictions on nonessential businesses, and many organizations—including government contractors—have taken the initiative to encourage employees to work from home. In this post, Carahsoft’s Adobe Product Specialist discusses tips and tricks to successfully establish a large scale Telework Environment during the beginning stages of the coronavirus pandemic in the Unites States.

 

4) Evolving Kubernetes into an Enterprise Container Platform

State agencies and academic institutions are increasingly challenged to keep up with the speed of innovation while meeting stakeholder demands and expectations. By turning to container-based services, organizations enable efficient, affordable application delivery and cloud migration. Kubernetes, an open source platform, is the industry standard in container orchestration technology, but managing and running “do it yourself” Kubernetes is easier said than done. In this post, Red Hat experts explain how organizations can use container-based services to enable efficient, affordable application delivery and cloud migration.

 

5) Start Your Agency Off on the Best Cybersecurity Foot With Federal Frameworks

According to the SolarWinds 2019 Federal Cybersecurity survey report, threats posed by careless and malicious insiders and foreign governments are at an all-time high. The report found 56% of federal government IT leaders surveyed considered careless or untrained insiders as the most significant threat to their organizations. Fifty-two percent said foreign governments are the primary menace to their agencies.

Despite this, federal agencies surveyed believe their ability to detect and prevent insider and malicious external threats has improved over the last year. Agencies attribute this confidence to updated federal regulations and mandates that give them the ability to better manage risk as part of their overall security posture. In this post, we spoke with SolarWinds about how agencies can effectively tailor their cybersecurity frameworks.

 

Top 10 Community Blogs 2020 Embedded Image6) 3 Reasons Federal Healthcare Agencies Need Cloud Computing

It’s been six years since U.S. healthcare providers were required to integrate medical records into electronic systems under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Since then, newer mandates have continued to encourage digital data sharing and interoperability within healthcare organizations.

A natural next step in the digitization of healthcare records is storing that data in the cloud, where it can be securely accessed and updated by healthcare teams. Additionally, when paired with cutting-edge artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies, cloud computing can offer data analysis that facilitates breakthroughs in medical research and patient care. In this post, Google Cloud talks 3 essential reasons that cloud computing can make a change in federal healthcare agencies.

 

7) How AI is Helping Government Agencies Deliver on their Missions

The Federal Data Strategy’s 2020 Action Plan released in December set the stage for how government agencies should prioritize data in the coming year. Since that time, many agencies have taken aggressive steps to turn their data holdings into strategic assets. One area of focus has been the increased adoption of AI and machine learning technologies. In my role, I work closely with the agencies and their data teams sitting on the front lines of this innovation. The early adopters who began their big data journey over the last few years are starting to see how data and predictive analytics can support their mission goals and create additional value for their stakeholders. In this post, Databricks walked us through examples of this implementation with teams across federal, state, and local agencies.

 

8) Creating Modern IDEA Compliant Citizen Experiences

Federal agencies are no longer expected to be just sources of information and services. They’re now tasked with providing digital experiences on par with those found on consumer sites. This starts with having a website compliant with the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act (IDEA). It also means incorporating useful content, a personalized experience, and data management that allows non-technical stakeholders to update and maintain the site. In this post, Liferay’s Kale Fluharty dives deep into how to create a government compliant citizen experience using DXP with USWDS 2.0.

 

9) How Facial Recognition Can Keep Flexible Workplaces Safe

As state and federal agencies begin exploring hybrid workplace models and planning on how to keep employees safe as the COVID pandemic continues to evolve, compliance is a critical piece of the puzzle. Office reopening plans are only as successful as their implementation, and government organizations must be able to ensure that whatever precautions they put into place—from requiring masks and social distancing to keeping remote or revolving workstations secure—are effective. In this post, piXlogic’s Joseph Santucci explains ways that facial recognition can improve workplace safety, especially during a COVID-era in which employee accountability is imperative.

 

10) Leaders In Innovation: Identity and Access Management

Agencies have been learning the importance of identity and access management for nearly two decades, but, like many technological evolutions, the coronavirus pandemic has encouraged adoption on an entirely new scale. As remote work became the norm, agencies adapted to use technology like smart identity cards in new ways, enabling capabilities like digital signatures. These new features are secured by the common access card (CAC) in the Department of Defense (DoD) or the Personal Identity Verification (PIV) card in the civilian environment, and all follow the principles and strategies of identity and access management. In this post, we summarized the full Leaders in Innovation report which discussed the benefits and challenges of identity and access management.

 

Though this year presented its challenges, such as many companies moving completely out of office due to a global pandemic, Government Technology has evolved to expand its capabilities. During this struggle, we’d like to thank all of our authors, contributors and readers for their support within our community. We’re pleased to continue growing our blog and expanding our content, and look forward to bringing you even more in 2021.

Thanks for checking out our top 10 Community Blog posts for 2020! Come back soon to read our upcoming series on public sector IT trends that will be mission critical in 2021 – we will be taking a deeper look into: Workflow Automation, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Cybersecurity and Multicloud Technology.

Creating Modern IDEA Compliant Citizen Experiences

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Federal agencies are no longer expected to be just sources of information and services. They’re now tasked with providing digital experiences on par with those found on consumer sites. This starts with having a website compliant with the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act (IDEA). It also means incorporating useful content, a personalized experience, and data management that allows non-technical stakeholders to update and maintain the site.

Among the many available resources for agencies to achieve IDEA compliance is the U.S. Web Design System (USWDS)—a library of code, tools, and guidance designed to help agency teams build fast, accessible, mobile-friendly websites. With the launch of USWDS 2.0 in 2019, the USWDS has become very adaptable with improved aesthetics and UX. This includes expressive theming to customize while remaining consistent with the system’s best practice guidance.

Liferay USWDS Blog ImageOvercoming Challenges to Meet Citizen Expectations

While the USWDS goes a long way towards building better digital experiences, it doesn’t offer the capabilities to provide streamlined, responsive digital engagement. Hindered by legacy systems that lack integration capabilities, agencies often struggle with fragmented and incomplete data that prevents operational efficiency and the ability to offer a seamless experience. Other challenges include insufficient or outdated information and manual processing of paperwork which creates time-consuming hassles for both citizens and government employees. Leveraging a digital experience platform (DXP), that includes USWDS code and guidance, is an effective way to build a compliant government website that also delivers a relevant, personalized citizen experience.

The Powerful Addition of a DXP

A DXP provides a modern architecture for agencies to deliver connected experiences. The platform gathers actionable insights to meet today’s citizen expectations and can integrate with both modern and legacy technologies. With an open architecture DXP, plugins can be applied to the platform, incorporating 3rd party libraries, such as USWDS. In other words, the goals of achieving compliance and improving citizen experiences can be achieved with a single solution.

  • Bridge Legacy and Modern Systems

With the addition of a DXP, agencies can connect disparate systems with a wide range of tools and APIs, combining data on a single, modern digital platform. The platform also can be scaled to meet the needs of citizens today and tomorrow.

  • Deliver a More Relevant Experience

A DXP can offer the advanced capabilities of persona modeling, journey mapping, responsive layout, and data-driven design to create personalized, relevant interactions. It can learn and adapt to user behaviors and feedback to continuously fine-tune personalization across both live and self-service engagement channels.

  • Provide Ready Access to Current Content

The challenge of finding information and manually processing paperwork can also be overcome. By effectively managing the entire lifecycle of content from creation to publishing, storage, maintenance, and deletion, a DXP enables the ability to immediately provide the optimal content to both citizens and staff.

  • A Winning Combination

As the push towards digital transformation continues, delivering on the design and functionality expectations of citizens is critical. With Liferay DXP and the Liferay Theme Generator, federal agencies can create IDEA-compliant experiences, rather than just disseminate content, to deliver thoroughly modern websites. Learn more about how to create better citizen experiences with Liferay. Be sure to visit the Liferay Digital Experience Hub for more information on how Liferay helps government agencies improve their digital experiences.