Forcepoint’s George Kamis: Agencies Need Cross-Domain Approach to Secure Data Flow

George Kamis, chief technology officer for global governments and critical infrastructure at Forcepoint, has said that effective cross-domain defenses require barriers such as firewalls that enable smooth collaboration without exposing critical data to cyber threats.

Kamis wrote in an opinion piece published Monday on GCN that organizations need to remove logistical barriers in their digital infrastructure while allowing firewall defenses to support various protocols for a range of applications including Zoom and Microsoft teaming software.

Agencies must additionally implement network security requirements that meet standards such as the National Security Agency’s “Raise the Bar” program to support cross-domain approaches, he noted.

According to Kamis, NSA’s initiative comes as part of ongoing efforts to ensure that agencies apply integrated cross-domain and unidirectional data flow requirements in their high-risk cyber infrastructure by the end of 2021.

“It’s no secret that cyberattacks are an omnipresent threat for government agencies that must balance the need to isolate networks with the need for rapid communication between those networks, as is required for critical missions,” he said.

“This layering allows for the sharing of information between classification levels and the ingestion of data from high-threat networks without creating untenable, unnecessary risk.”