New research from cybersecurity company Everfox reveals that 84% of government IT security leaders agree that sharing sensitive data across networks heightens their cyber risk, and more than half (53%) still rely on manual data transfer processes, even as AI accelerates the pace of operations.

The findings from the newly published CYBER360: Defending the Digital Battlespace report, which surveyed 500 security leaders and IT decision makers working in government, defense, and critical services across the U.S. and UK, also found that national security organisations faced an average of 137 attempted or successful cyber-attacks per week in 2025, up from 127 in 2024.

Cyber-attacks against agencies in the U.S. occurred more frequently on a weekly basis than in the UK, surging 25% in the last year.

The implications for national security are significant. With digital transformation redefining the battlespace, mission success increasingly depends on trusted data being able to move securely across domains and between allies at mission speed.

However, respondents participating in the survey cited numerous challenges to achieving this:

• 78% cited outdated infrastructure as a primary source of cyber vulnerability, speaking to the prevalence of analog systems and manual processes that act as weak links in secure data sharing

• Nearly half (49%) cited ensuring data integrity and preventing tampering in transit as their single biggest challenge when transferring information across classified or coalition networks
• 45% surveyed cited managing identity and authentication across multiple domains as the biggest challenge to securing access to mission data across different domains

“The battlefield is transforming, and data is becoming more and more vital to mission success. Decision advantage now hinges on the capability to share and access data at mission speed without compromising security.

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“A new cybersecurity framework that adds a layer of data-centric security and the ability to quickly share trusted information needs to become the foundation to achieve operational resilience and mission assurance,” said Dave Wajsgras, chairman and chief executive officer at Everfox.

The challenges to secure data access and transfer cited by government and defense agencies in the CYBER360 report highlight an urgent need to move beyond mere network defenses and adopt a new model that combines multiple layers of protection.

By utilising three interacting cybersecurity frameworks – Zero Trust, Data Centric Security (DCS) and Cross Domain Solutions (CDS) – agencies can achieve secure, near real-time Cross Domain data exchange and access across mission critical systems.