New technologies offer United States federal agencies opportunities for increased efficiency and innovation, along with improved citizen services.
With this in mind, the Trump administration is pushing the federal bureaucracy to embrace digital transformation and rise to meet new challenges. This government efficiency effort emphasizes the modernization of legacy systems and software, highlighting the need for robust cybersecurity strongly promoting the use of the cloud for efficiency across government.
In parallel, the House Committee on Homeland Security held a hearing in March to examine how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) undermines U.S. sovereignty through its use of espionage, transnational repression, pre-positioning in our critical infrastructure, intellectual property theft, and supply chain dominance. Chinese actors relentlessly penetrate U.S. networks and critical infrastructure, harvesting vast troves of sensitive data in the process.
This dual effort to increase government efficiency and secure the federal IT infrastructure against state-sponsored cyberattacks will require new technology, if it is going to be effective. Rubrik stands out as a leading data backup, security, and recovery innovator with unique solutions that perfectly align with these strategic goals.
Rubrik’s advanced technology, including Rubrik Security Cloud-Government (RSC-G), allows agencies to enhance their cybersecurity posture and resilience, streamline operations, and effectively manage their data, no matter where it resides, all while saving taxpayer dollars.
Technology That’s Up to the Task
Not every technology solution can meet these ambitious goals. The Trump administration's technology and software modernization focus will require the right tools to:
Enhance cybersecurity to strengthen defenses against cyber threats
Modernize legacy systems to repair inefficient, outdated processes
Migrate data to the cloud to reduce cost and improve scalability
Apply data management policies that unlock big data and enhance decision-making
Leverage powerful technology to win the AI race
Innovate public services with modern tools
RSC-G, with its FedRAMP Moderate authorization, delivers a trusted cloud data management solution that meets these stringent requirements—providing complete cyber resilience to ensure federal agencies can advance the White House’s technology and efficiency vision:
Enhance Cybersecurity: Rubrik’s end-to-end encryption and zero-trust architecture can improve resilience across the federal government.
Modernize Legacy Systems: Rubrik’s unified platform for backup and automated operations is designed for fast, complete data recovery.
Migrate to the Cloud: Rubrik’s support for multi-cloud and hybrid cloud environments increases data protection, helping reduce the cost of cloud and on-premise compute.
Apply Data Management: Rubrik can provide comprehensive visibility into agencies’ sensitive data, monitor user access, detect malicious activity, and deliver actionable insights that promote compliance and efficient archiving.
Innovate Public Services: Rubrik’s robust automation and API-driven architecture supports integration and scalability.
Leverage Powerful Technology: Rubrik empowers agencies with AI-driven data security and rapid cyber recovery to safeguard critical information and outpace dynamic adversaries.
Legacy systems and a spectrum of agency-specific tools have created gray spaces and blind spots in the agency IT infrastructures where cyber threat actors thrive. Rubrik's solutions can help shed light into these dim areas, activating the kind of innovative, cost-effective IT modernization that delivers a last line of protection for sensitive data.
Detect, Respond, and Recover From Cyber Incidents with Secure Backups
Most organizations are highly susceptible to significant cyber risk. Many information security requirements are 20 to 30 years old and ineffective against insider threats or cyberattacks.
This is particularly troubling for federal agencies, where adversaries and cybercriminals target sensitive citizen data, critical infrastructure operations, and national security information. Agencies must be able to quickly detect, respond to, and recover from breaches to maintain essential government functions and public trust. They need to prioritize and implement cyber resilience across all interconnected systems and devices.
To achieve cyber resilience, agencies must be able to detect threats, respond with an established plan, and recover normal operations as quickly as possible.
The first step towards cyber reliance is to be aware that there are gaps in data security strategy. The biggest concern agencies face is a false sense of security; many agencies do not realize they have risks because they haven't felt the pain yet. Most victims think they are resilient: until a cyberattack or insider threat hits them and the damage is done.
To maintain vigilance, agencies must routinely test the recovery of backups and ensure they function within timelines critical to mission success. While the Department of Defense’s (DOD’s) Risk Management Framework (RMF) includes backup and contingency planning requirements, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – Cyber Survivability Endorsement (CSE) Implementation Guide makes it clear that meeting those requirements is not enough to ensure a truly resilient cyber risk posture.
Secondly, agencies should continuously monitor and search their backups for malware and encryption events to confirm they are safe and trusted. Using native solutions will help avoid exposing government agencies' critical information to additional attack vectors and risks. They should start with the most critical systems and data and then work backwards until they have adequate backup and resiliency across their environments.
Federal Government Data Security Checklist
So, how do you get out in front of the threat if you want to avoid feeling this pain? If you are a government decision maker looking to align with these White House priorities, your first question is probably: “Where do I start?”
The answer (curiously) is to ask yourself more questions:
Do I know where my data resides?
What data do I have?
Where is my sensitive data?
Who has access to this sensitive data?
Is my data secure? Has my data been modified, deleted, wiped, or ransomed?
Is my data currently under attack? What is the blast radius?
What are the shared responsibility requirements for data protection?
Is my Federal System Integrator protecting my data? How do I know?
How do I protect my critical data during the IT modernization process?
Rubrik can address all these concerns by giving agencies visibility and control over their data and helping protect data across on-premises, cloud, and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications. A Rubrik solution can help reduce cost and free the workforce from the burden of maintaining and patching backup software.
Rubrik Can Help Align with Efficiency and Cost Reduction Goals
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has been the driving force behind these government IT modernization efforts. Using Rubrik, DOGE can streamline federal operations, reduce redundancies, and optimize the workforce, aligning with its goal of improved efficiency and reduced costs. Here’s how:
Streamlining Federal Operations: Unified Data Management combines backup, recovery, archiving, and compliance in a single platform, simplifying management and oversight. Rubrik also enables the automation of backup and recovery, reducing manual work and promoting data consistency.
Reducing Redundancy: Rubrik Integrates multiple data management functions into one solution, promoting tool consolidation. Rubrik also promotes data deduplication, reducing storage redundancy and costs by storing only unique data.
Optimizing the Workforce: Automation helps free up IT staff by reducing manual tasks, allowing resources to be redeployed to strategic projects. Also, having a unified platform simplifies training, increasing the efficiency of staff onboarding and helping staff manage data more efficiently.
Specific Benefits That Support the DOGE Mission: Rubrik's solutions lower infrastructure and storage costs through consolidation and deduplication. Product design and architecture promotes cost efficiency in federal data management strategies. Also, faster data recovery and scalable cloud solutions ensure minimal downtime and adaptability, increasing operational agility. Built-in security features and automated compliance reporting protect sensitive data and ensure regulatory adherence. These capabilities include logical air gaps and immutable backups that cannot be disabled by an administrator or privileged user.
Future-Proof Your Agency
The federal government has never been more dependent on data and software. US persons and government missions all rely on the availability, confidentiality, integrity and recoverability of data to maintain our military and economic strengths. This dependency is a big target for attacks which creates risks such as software supply chain attacks, ransomware, software bugs, insider threats, and other cyberattacks. Too much reliance is being put on compliance, protection, and detection. In the "assume breach" reality of Zero Trust Architecture, it is crucial to move quickly and ensure government systems are prepared to withstand cyberattacks.
Rubrik helps agencies securely backup and protect data, move from legacy systems to hybrid and multi-cloud environments more efficiently, and ensure standard backup protection and recovery across an agency’s entire enterprise. This allows agency leaders to improve what they do today–saving on operations, maintenance, and license costs while future-proofing their agencies as they navigate forward.
Learn more about how Rubrik can secure federal data and applications.