Forcepoint’s Nicolas Fischbach: User Activity Monitoring Could Help Agencies Protect Data

Nicolas Fischbach, global chief technology officer at Forcepoint, wrote in a guest piece published Friday on Nextgov that government agencies should prioritize data visibility and data loss prevention as they head into 2021.

He said agencies should determine how employees and other users interact with government data through user activity monitoring with the aid of behavioral analytics to better detect compromised accounts and malicious actors.

“Behavioral analytics and indicators of behavior focus on events and how users interact with data. This makes it possible to understand data usage in context and to apply data loss prevention policies adaptively,” Fischbach wrote.

Fischbach discussed how analytics and machine learning could help agencies assess data movement and act immediately in the event of a compromise. He also noted that agencies looking to implement activity monitoring should proactively communicate with their personnel and assure them that their privacy is protected.

“In 2021 and beyond, cloud-native solutions that offer a deep understanding of user behavior must become the new normal,” he added.