Ep. 20 Managing Apps for Federal Agencies

Everyone reading this knows that the typical federal agency runs thousands of apps. We have seen reports that range from 600 apps to 2,400 apps. The number of apps is debatable, and the managing of these apps is the real concern.

According to Beau Hutto from Netskope, only 3% of these apps are managed. You can attribute that to a lack of funding, trained system managers, or a constant state of transition, but the fact remains that each one of these apps can develop into an attack point for the system.

During the interview, Beau Hutto talks about an innovative way to manage a network – through something called a Secure Access Edge Service. This is an approach where an intermediary platform can provide a manager with knowledge about the user, the device, and the app. This allows for the automation of task management in disparate systems. Beau Hutto argues that a system like this will reduce complexity, provide universal access, and be cost-effective.

In a related development, Netskope is organizing a group of network experts into the Netksope Network Visionaries. They will take years of combined experience to give observations about recent attacks and potential remediation efforts.

Netskope recently partnered with the U.S. Patent and Trade Office to upgrade its network management system. The USPTO understood that, even with a system that performing at an optimal capacity, technical changes were happening so rapidly they needed to move the idea of zero trust to the edge of their cloud-spanning system.