Cybersecurity is both a driver and a major barrier to public sector IT modernization, according to new research from BAE Systems Applied Intelligence.
The cyber consultancy polled 250 managers with IT responsibility in UK central governmental organizations, to better understand the interplay between security and digital transformation.
The research revealed that most (60%) UK government departments have digital transformation plans in place and that these have been accelerated in the majority of cases by the pandemic.
Mitigating the risk of vulnerabilities was cited by three-quarters (75%) of respondents as the main reason for driving these legacy upgrades.
This push is being borne out of current experience. Nearly two-thirds (63%) of respondents said they suffered a security incident in the past six months and over half of these (52%) came as a result of missing patches.
The mass exploitation of unpatched Microsoft Exchange Server bugs earlier this year is proof of the potentially disruptive impact of such threats.
Yet security was also cited by 68% of respondents as a…
