Alice Fakir on Securing Agencies’ Hybrid Cloud Environments

Alice Fakir, IBM’s senior partner for federal cybersecurity services, has recommended that federal departments with agencies operating in hybrid on-premises and cloud environments should adopt artificial intelligence-driven identity management for better security. “Traditional access controls from on-prem environments don’t translate easily to the cloud,” she told FedTech Magazine in an interview published Wednesday.

With an AI-based identity management tool, agencies can continuously check user roles and allowed privileges, Fakir explained. In the current hybrid cloud environment, government agencies’ security teams are largely compelled to become integrators, given their patchwork of tools, she observed. 

“This approach creates blind spots, where agencies may not even realize vulnerabilities exist until they are exploited,” the IBM official pointed out. With no clear view across agencies’ infrastructure, security teams face a near impossible task in maintaining compliance and protecting sensitive data, Fakir stressed.

Nutanix Executive Concurs

Dan Fallon, director for the intelligence community at Nutanix, shared Fakir’s view in the same interview, saying it is a challenge to keep a consistent security protocol encompassing various cloud platforms with each having their own security policies.

“As soon as you leave your on-prem environment, you’re outside your firewall boundary and relying on third-party cloud providers,” he explained. The multiple identity management solutions many agencies still use further complicate the process of securing authentication and access, he added.

To hurdle the security risks in the hybrid cloud environment, Fallon sees promise in the multifactor identification that agencies are increasingly adopting for privileged accounts, which are prime cyberattack targets. He also favors automation and centralized security controls deployed across cloud environments. 

“This ensures security configurations remain consistent and reduces human errors that lead to vulnerabilities,” he said.