Juniper’s David Mihelcic: Federal IT Leaders Should Use Network Elements in Cyber Threat Detection

David Mihelcic, federal chief technology and strategy officer at Juniper Networks, has said federal information technology administrators should leverage firewalls, switches, routers and other network components to protect agency networks from cyber threats amid the prevalence of internet-connected devices.

Mihelcic wrote in a FedTech guest post published Wednesday that agency IT leaders should combine those components to establish a “single domain for real-time threat analysis.”

“Using network components as enforcement points and incorporating them with malware detection capabilities eliminates the need to manually configure and monitor security across multitudes of devices or disparate data centers,” he wrote.

“The components can serve as active participants in threat detection and risk mitigation, automatically alerting administrators to any potential anomalies and blocking exploits with minimal human intervention.”

Mihelcic cited the capability of machine learning platforms to counter and respond to future cyber threats and the role of IT administrators in the development of network security-related policies and efforts to ensure the security of data, applications and devices.

“Increased automation and orchestration will also greatly simplify and streamline administrators’ management duties, allowing them to focus more on mission-critical tasks that will advance their agencies’ objectives,” he noted.