New Microsoft-commissioned study highlights increasing cybercrime threats to governments and current blindspots

While governments are increasingly spending more IT resources and budgets on cybersecurity, there are still blindspots and weak links in their IT management, usage and policies, which makes them vulnerable to cyberattacks, according to an independent study released by research consultancy firm TRPC, titled “Public Data At Risk: Cyber Threats to the Networked Government”. The study reflects that while governments across Asia-Pacific are strategically looking at adopting IT solutions to streamline and enhance the efficiency of their work, management of data and delivery of public services, a networked environment is being actively targeted by cyber threats affecting safety and security of government data, national security, critical infrastructure, and international diplomacy.The study, commissioned by Microsoft, assessed the trends around IT systems and infrastructure being built by governments and the related IT investments, types of public and sovereign data and information stored by governments, and the types of the cybercrime threats being targeted towards Government. The endeavour of the study is to propose a roadmap to senior government policy leaders and business decision makers to enable a resilient, reliable and strong cybersecurity strategy and trusted IT usage framework. It has also been established that an unmanaged and unregulated IT supply chain is one of the most potent ways in which malware infections are taking root inside systems and committing cybersecurity breaches, according to the TRPC study.