New MeriTalk-Billington Research: Federal Agencies Make Headway on Zero Trust, but More Work Remains as AI Accelerates Cyber Threats

As federal cyber leaders gather for the 17th Annual Billington CyberSecurity Summit , the event’s theme – “Reducing Risk in An Age of AI-Enabled Threats,” – captures the reality agencies face today. Faster-moving adversaries, AI-enabled attacks, critical infrastructure risk, and growing dependence on interconnected technologies and suppliers are raising the stakes for cyber professionals working to protect systems and sustain operations.

New research from MeriTalk and Billington CyberSecurity, underwritten by General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT) and Horizon3.ai, uncovers a widening gap between agencies’ understanding of cyber risks and their abilities to act on them at speed.

Eighty-three percent say organizations understand their cyber risks better than they can execute against them, and just 21% say they are reducing risk faster than new threats are evolving.