An investigation by the National Audit Office (NAO) has uncovered that 30% of applications used by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) are unsupported, having been developed with outdated software, increasing its security risk.
The report revealed that Defra, the government department overseeing environmental protection, food production and rural communities, use an estimated 1,962 different applications with 30% not supported by their supplier in July 2022.
The report outlined that Defra is at ‘serious risk’ of critical service failure or cyberattack as a result of a lack of investment in core IT systems and cybersecurity.
“Out of date and unsupported applications leave devices vulnerable to malicious actors and particularly at a time of heightened cyberthreat due to holiday scams and the recession, it is important that devices at all organisations, including Defra, are kept up to date to mitigate as much risk as possible,” said Achi Lewis, Area VP EMEA for Absolute Software. “Whether it be automation, upskilling, outsourcing, or another means, organisations must ensure they have a strong cybersecurity posture at a time when there is significant threat of cyberattacks.
“Absolute’s The Value of Zero Trust in a Work From Anywhere World Report earlier this year presented similar findings, with two-thirds of enterprise devices running 2+ OS versions behind and that on average enterprise devices are 77 days out of date with current patching.”
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