Government entities are huge targets of cyber attacks.
Local town governments, school districts, police departments, and other county agencies all hold an enormous amount of sensitive data. Everything from resident records to tax information and criminal justice files is at stake, all while running on tight budgets and limited IT teams.
Attackers know this, and they’re constantly looking for vulnerabilities to exploit in the public sector. Small towns to big cities, plus state and federal governments are all at risk.
Research suggests that 38% of public sector entities have insufficient resilience to cyber attacks (vs. 10% of mid-to-large private companies). Nearly half of all organizations say they don’t have the resources to meet cybersecurity goals.
Additionally, Trend Micro’s latest threat data shows that the pressure against public-sector organizations is intensifying, with ransomware attacks on government bodies up 65% year over year.
The encouraging part is that you can apply some best practices that will meaningfully lower your risks. Here’s where to start:
Require Multi-Factor Authentication
If you do nothing else, make sure multi-factor authentication (MFA) is a requirement for everyone in your organization. Stolen credentials and guessed passwords are the most common ways that attackers breach networks, and MFA closes that door.
Once MFA is enabled, the user logging in with a password also has to confirm their identity using something else they physically have (like a code from an app or hardware key).
Apply it everywhere:
- Email accounts
- Remote access
- Financial and payroll systems
- Any account with administrative privileges
You should understand that not all MFAs are created equal. Codes sent by text are better than nothing, but they can be intercepted. So stronger methods like authenticator apps and hardware keys are becoming the standard. For some public sector instances (as we’ll discuss later), it’s actually the legal requirement.
Segment Your Network
A “flat” network, where every device connected can reach anything else on the network, is much more susceptible to a large-scale breach. Once an attacker gets into one machine, they can essentially roam freely across everything.
To limit this type of exposure, you can segment your network. Here’s how it works:
Network segmentation breaks your IT environment into separate zones so a problem in one area can’t automatically spread to the rest. This is crucial for government entities because your systems serve very different purposes.
For example, the public Wi-Fi in a library should not be sitting on top of the same network as your internal payroll system or police records. So walling those off from each other limits how far a single breach can travel while keeping your most sensitive systems insulated from others.
In the event of a breach, your exposure level is contained to just one segment of the larger network.
Filter Email and Web Traffic Before It Reaches People
A whopping 90% of successful phishing attacks start with an email, according to the latest data from CISA.
It could be a malicious link, fake login page, or an attachment that isn’t what it claims to be. Regardless of the source, the most effective time to stop this threat is by eliminating it before they ever land in your staff’s inbox.
Modern email filtering catches a large portion of phishing and malicious messaging automatically. While web filtering blocks people from reaching known-dangerous sites if they do click something.
None of this replaces an alert workforce that knows what to look for. But it can drastically reduce the number of threats people need to evaluate in the first place.
Encrypt Sensitive Data
Encryption scrambles your data in a way that prevents bad actors from actually seeing it. So even if it lands in the wrong person’s hands, everything is unreadable without a decryption key.
For public agencies holding sensitive data, it’s a basic safeguard (and sometimes an outright requirement).
There are two places where encryption matters:
- Data at Rest — Information being stored on servers, laptops, and backup drives. Encrypting it means stolen or lost devices don’t automatically lead to data breaches.
- Data in Transit — When data moves across the internet or between systems, encryption keeps everything unreadable while it travels.
Most modern systems support encryption out of the box. But you still need to make sure it’s actually turned on everywhere it should be, rather than just assuming things are being handled appropriately.
Lock Down Remote and Mobile Access
The days of all government work happening at a specific desk or computer are long gone. Field inspectors, remote staff, and officers working from computers all need access to systems from outside the building.
A few basics can go a long way here:
- Run remote access through protected, encrypted connections so systems are never exposed directly to the internet.
- Require any device that connects (including personal phones and laptops) to meet a baseline of security before they’re trusted.
- Set up devices that leave the building so they can be locked or wiped remotely if they’re lost or stolen.
Every connection point is a potential way into your network if things aren’t properly secured.
Manage the Physical Security of Your Systems
When people think about cybersecurity they often make the mistake of preparing for digital security. But the rooms where your servers live or the closets where your network gear sits are also part of municipal IT security, and they’re easy to overlook.
Plenty of incidents can be traced back to someone simply walking up to equipment they shouldn’t have been able to reach.
Start with the basics: physical locks on server rooms with controlled access.
This is a requirement for agencies subject to criminal justice data rules. You need to have controlled entry, a record of who accessed what, and basic surveillance on sensitive areas. These close gaps that purely technical/digital defenses leave open.
Protect Your Backups and Have a Plan to Recover
This is a must-have for the public sector due to the high threat of a ransomware attack that can occur at any time. Hackers have less leverage for demanding payments if you have a clean, up-to-date backup that you can restore quickly.
Your data backups can also be helpful in the event of accidental deletions or natural disasters that knock out your systems.
Here are some tips for handling backups:
- Keep multiple copies of everything, with at least one stored offsite or in the cloud.
- Ensure at least one copy is disconnected from your main network.
- Verify that retention meets the legal requirements for your records.
- Actually test your restoration on a regular basis to ensure it works.
You should also create a formal incident response plan that details who’s in charge, who to call, how to isolate affected systems, and how to keep essential public services running while you’re recovering.
This eliminates confusion while you’re under pressure, either from an attack or outage.
Know the Compliance Rules That Apply to You
Public agencies operate under stricter rules that most private businesses never have to deal with. These aren’t optional.
The most significant IT compliance requirement for many local governments is the FBI’s CJIS Security Policy, which governs any system that stores or handles criminal justice information (police departments, dispatch centers, and anything connected to them).
CJIS has tightened considerably in recent years. MFA is now mandatory for accessing criminal justice data, and weaker methods like text-message costs don’t satisfy the standards. Requirements are also moving toward security you have to demonstrate on an ongoing basis, as opposed to proving once and forgetting about it.
Schools also have their own framework in FERPA for student records, and any public entity handling health information runs into HIPAA.
You don’t have to memorize all of these. But you do need to understand which rules apply to your specific organization. Then work with a managed IT partner to ensure you’re compliant.
Plan Ahead So You Can Budget Accordingly
Funding security in the public sector doesn’t work the same way it does for private businesses. You can’t simply decide to spend more whenever a need arises.
Your dollars are public, every line item is scrutinized, and cybersecurity is competing directly with roads, salaries, schools, and public services that residents see every day. On top of all that, you’re working inside fixed budget cycles and approval processes that move slowly (while your threats aren’t waiting around for the next vote).
That reality is exactly why you need to plan ahead. This matters for governments arguably more than anyone else.
Here are a few practical approaches to make things more manageable:
- Replacing aging hardware and software on a planned schedule so the cost is anticipated in the budget rather than hitting all at once when something fails.
- Treat cyber security as a predictable, recurring line item: far easier to defend and approve than scrambling for emergency funds after an incident.
- Pursue funding options through federal and state cybersecurity grants that are often unclaimed because people don’t apply.
- Make the case that cost prevention is almost always a fraction of the cost of downtime, recovery, legal exposure, and lost public trust.
Effective cybersecurity for public sector entities doesn’t always mean a bigger budget. You just need to have a smarter one and plan accordingly.
This makes it easier to spread costs across budget cycles instead of absorbing a crisis all at once.
Putting It All Into Practice
For most people reading this, I’m sure everything above sounds good. But implementation is easier said than done.
The reality is that most public sector organizations weren’t built to be cybersecurity professionals, and they don’t have to be. A managed IT and cybersecurity can handle all of the work you don’t have the time or specialized knowledge for.
Here at Balsam Technologies, we have decades of experience helping government entities and organizations in the public sector with IT and cybersecurity. Book a free consultation to get started.
