Agencies’ attack surface has grown tremendously in recent years, overlapping devices, software, networks and locations. IT departments are under-resourced, struggling to keep up with the speed, scale and complexity of modern cyber attacks. Many teams lack bandwidth for higher-value activities like threat hunting.
“The sheer volume opens up so many ways people can gain unauthorized access to information now,” says Claire Bailey, public-sector CIO at Tanium.
Autonomous endpoint management returns valuable time and energy to skilled staff. Legacy tools provide fragmented, outdated views of infrastructure and leave blind spots that attackers exploit.
7 STEPS TO AUTONOMOUS ENDPOINT MANAGEMENT
- Map what you actually have — and what’s hiding. Visibility isn’t just inventory; agencies should know device state, behavior, connections and patterns over time.
- Tie automation to outcomes that matter. Automation should strengthen mission performance and utilization — uptime, service reliability, compliance and public trust.
- Define human-in-the-loop controls. Human oversight remains essential. Agencies must establish clear policies for when and how humans intervene. Autonomy doesn’t eliminate humans; it elevates their judgment.
- Design for collaboration, not control. Different parts of the organization may have different cultures. Automation programs fail not because of technology but because of turf. Build governance that unites IT, legal, HR, procurement and operations.
- Codify policy before you automate. Before turning on autonomous actions, agencies must define the legal and operational “rules of engagement” — where automation is allowed, what it can act on and what triggers human review. Governments must accelerate their pace to codify policy.
- Treat training as part of your security posture. Teams must understand how automation fits into their work. A workforce that understands how to supervise, interpret and optimize automation reduces operational and compliance risk.
- Scale by experimenting, not expanding. Start with bite-sized approaches. The most successful programs scale through controlled pilots, not rapid expansion.
3 BIGGEST AUTOMATION MISTAKES
- Doing too much, too fast. Automating too many workflows at once increases risk and undermines confidence. Pick specific workflows.
- Automating just for the sake of automation. Automating inefficient or outdated workflows reinforces bad practices.
- Underutilizing your suite of tools. Agencies sometimes adopt new tools but use only a fraction of capabilities. Limited deployment restricts value and scalability.
MODERN THREATS DEMAND AGILITY
Defending today’s digital environment requires government agencies to move from reactive responses to proactive resilience, built on real-time visibility, dynamic control and automation that scales with mission complexity.
Autonomous endpoint management is a critical part of that evolution. By leveraging intelligent automation, agencies can close visibility gaps, shrink response times and eliminate routine inefficiencies that slow defense operations.
Yet technology alone does not guarantee transformation. The path forward requires deliberate governance, clear accountability and human oversight built into every automated process. A phased, mission-aligned approach — anchored in compliance, transparency and measurable outcomes — ensures agencies can innovate responsibly without compromising trust or control.
By shifting the focus to cyber hygiene and reducing risk, you also shift the mindset to prevention and hardening versus threat response. The priority must be securing your assets. In today’s cybersecurity environments, IT leaders must be able to react faster than a zero-day incident by harnessing the speed of automation.
With the right strategy, governance and trusted partners, agencies will gain the visibility, adaptability and assurance they need to safeguard.
