Maria Roat: Zero Trust, Quantum Concepts Key to Fortifying Federal Systems

Maria Roat, deputy federal chief information officer and a 2020 Wash100 Award recipient, has said that federal agencies need to evolve their systems to ensure their capacity to handle quantum technologies and withstand emerging threats.

Roat told attendees at the Billington Cybersecurity Summit that agencies should consider investing in zero-trust architecture efforts to support system configuration updates while capitalizing on emerging concepts such as quantum computing

She said the recent transition to telework operations saw a significant increase in cyber attacks that tested the security of systems used by the public and private sectors.

“Even as I’m modernizing some of our old systems, our legacy systems, I have to make sure that our current systems as well are keeping up,” noted Roat. “How the federal government operated around cybersecurity is really a testament to the maturity of the federal government around networking and its modernization over the last several years," she added.

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