Top officials across the federal government increasingly acknowledge that yesterday’s security models are no longer sufficient to counter today’s and tomorrow’s threats. The White House’s recently issued National Cyber Strategy embodies this understanding. It represents a serious and essential move toward a more comprehensive approach to safeguarding the nation and its people, and it should be seen as more than just a policy paper—it must be put into practice.
The strategy’s focus on critical infrastructure and integrated technologies directly mirrors what the industry has observed across federal agencies: a growing disconnect between the threats they encounter and the tools and frameworks they rely on to address them.
The strategy provides a solid starting point. The tougher challenge lies in what follows.
For years, federal agencies have handled cybersecurity using a fragmented model, implementing separate solutions for information technology (IT), operational technology (OT), Internet of Things (IoT), and Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) environments. That approach was logical when these environments were mostly isolated. They are no longer. Integrated technologies have fundamentally altered the attack surface, and a framework built around isolated silos cannot deliver the visibility or response speed that modern threats require.
Each additional standalone solution increases complexity. More complexity creates more gaps for adversaries to exploit and adds more mental burden for security teams that are already overwhelmed. Agencies that persist with this approach are not just accumulating technical debt—they are accumulating strategic risk. A unified, comprehensive view across all connected assets is not a lofty goal—it is an operational necessity.
To put the National Cyber Strategy into action, agencies should adopt a three-step process.
Asset context: Understand what you have and how it should behave
Inventory and assessment efforts across the federal government have made genuine progress. But simply knowing what assets exist is only the beginning. Agencies must also understand how those assets should behave under normal conditions, because that is what makes anomaly detection effective. For instance, a security camera communicating with an internal database is a concern. A building access system sending data to an overseas location is a serious threat indicator. Without behavioral baselines, agencies cannot differentiate normal activity from the early signs of a breach.
Real-time, continuous monitoring: Go beyond the spreadsheet
Weekly reports and periodic spreadsheet updates belong to a threat landscape that no longer exists. AI-powered attacks don’t wait for a scheduled review cycle. They operate at machine speed, constantly probing for weaknesses. Federal agencies need monitoring capabilities that keep pace, with dynamic, real-time visibility that shortens the decision window between detecting an anomaly and responding. The aim is to stop incidents from escalating before a human analyst ever needs to step in.
Prioritized exposure management: Anticipate what’s ahead
The third step requires agencies to look outward as well as inward. Threat intelligence about what adversaries are developing and deploying across the broader landscape only becomes useful when it’s matched against what’s actually present within an agency’s own environment. The question isn’t just what’s being targeted elsewhere—the question is whether your agency is currently exposed to it. That correlation, performed continuously and at scale, is the foundation of a truly proactive security posture.
Putting these steps into practice requires more than just better tools—it demands a fundamental shift in how the government manages its technology.
Automation is the architecture that makes all three steps feasible at the speed and scale that modern threats require. Human analysts can’t manually process the volume of signals generated by today’s environments. The decision window between incident and response must be narrowed, and in many cases, closed automatically.
Automation must serve as the connecting layer across asset visibility, continuous monitoring, and exposure management. Without it, each of those capabilities operates in isolation. With it, they function as an integrated, adaptive defense.
A strategy without accountability is merely a statement of intent, not a plan for change. Elected officials and policymakers have a vital role to play in closing that gap. They should be asking agency leaders direct questions: How do you know what’s in your environment in real time? What’s your plan for managing integrated technologies under a single security framework? How are you automating incident detection and response? Are you waiting for an alert, or are you actively correlating against emerging threats?
Linking agency funding to demonstrated compliance with the operational steps outlined in the strategy would significantly accelerate implementation. When taxpayer dollars depend on agencies proving real-time capability, the conversation shifts from acknowledgment to accountability.
The administration has laid out a clear vision. Now, the broader federal government must commit to turning that vision into operational reality. A strong national cyber strategy that gathers dust on a shelf is not a security posture—it’s a missed opportunity.
The path forward demands discipline. Understand everything in your environment and how it should behave. Monitor it continuously and in real time. Correlate external developments with your internal exposure. And embed automation into every layer of that process so your security teams can operate at the speed the federal threat landscape demands.
The National Cyber Strategy gives federal agencies the mandate to lead with resilience. The question now is whether we’ll hold each other accountable for realizing it, and whether we can place the priority of protecting our nation’s critical assets above partisan politics.
Tom Guarente is vice president of external and government affairs at Armis.
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