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As a result, cyber is increasingly being viewed as a key component in enterprise risk management (ERM) frameworks. At the same time, agency managers encounter the challenge of implementing cyber risk management by selecting from a complex array of security controls that reflect a variety of technical, operational, and managerial perspectives.

Professor Dawson’s recommended roadmap is based on research into past experiences in IT modernization at the Federal and State level, as well as in industry. He draws lessons from his research and extensive case interviews with Federal and State Chief Information Officers (CIOs). Using these lessons, the author frames impediments to modernization and risks for agencies that do not modernize, including continued cybersecurity weaknesses.

In hindsight, it is easy to identify Alexander Graham Bell’s invention of the telephone in the 1870s as an instrument of marvel, eventually connecting people worldwide. And of course, there is the internet, which, although it burst into the public realm less than 30 years ago, is a technology and service that few can envision living without, whether we understood that in the 1990s or not.

Congress granted the executive branch the authority to establish and implement cross-agency initiatives, via the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) Modernization Act of 2010. That law, among other things, requires the Office of Management and Budget to designate “Cross-Agency Priority Goals” for a small handful of mission-support and mission-related areas, covering a four-year period, along with the designation of a goal leader and the requirement for quarterly progress reports.