Quick wins for a faster PC:
Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Secure a government website by reducing unnecessary internet exposure, keeping every public-facing component supported and patched, protecting publishing and administrator accounts with strong multifactor authentication (MFA), and monitoring changes and activity. AI can help attackers scale reconnaissance, phishing, vulnerability discovery, and malicious content creation; it does not make these core controls obsolete. If the site includes an AI chatbot or agent, secure that component separately: it introduces risks involving untrusted inputs, data access, and tool permissions that a conventional website baseline does not address.
What changes when attackers use AI?
AI tools can assist with tasks such as writing convincing phishing messages, generating malicious content, and finding or investigating potential vulnerabilities. That can change the speed and shape of an attack, but it does not mean every incident is AI-driven or that an AI-assisted attack is automatically more successful. Ordinary weaknesses—such as exposed administration interfaces, unpatched software, weak account protection, and excessive permissions—remain important.
NIST’s March 24, 2025 report, Adversarial Machine Learning: A Taxonomy and Terminology of Attacks and Mitigations, describes attacks on AI and machine-learning systems. It is not a tally of attacks against government websites. Keep the terms distinct: AI-assisted attacks are attacks in which an adversary uses AI tools; adversarial machine learning refers to attacks targeting machine-learning systems.
How should you reduce the website’s public exposure?
Build an inventory before changing access
Maintain an inventory of internet-reachable domains and services, including cloud assets, web servers, APIs, content-management systems (CMSs), staging sites, administrative interfaces, and third-party services. Record who owns each asset, why it needs to be reachable, and what it depends on. CISA’s June 4, 2025 Internet Exposure Reduction Guidance recommends finding exposed assets, deciding which need to remain accessible, addressing risks to those that stay exposed, and making exposure assessments routine.
The Tool Desk
Outbyte Driver Updater FREEScan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →#1 Best Overall
- The FortiGate 60F series offers an excellent Security and SD-WAN solution in a compact fanless desktop form factor for enterprise branch offices and mid-sized businesses
- Protect against cyber threats with industry-leading secure SD-WAN in a simple, affordable, and easy to deploy solution
- Security Identifies thousands of applications inside network traffic for deep inspection and granular policy enforcement Protects against malware, exploits, and malicious websites in both
- Provides Zero Touch Integration with Security Fabric's Single Pane of Glass Management Predefined compliance checklist analyzes the deployment and highlights the best practices to improve overall
Use authorized discovery and scanning methods, and confirm findings with the teams responsible for the assets before removing access or changing services. When evaluating a scanning service or tool, consider its asset coverage, authorization controls, false-positive handling, remediation workflow, data handling, agency approval, and ability to cover your cloud and network environment. CISA’s mention of tools is not an endorsement of a vendor.
Remove access that is not needed
For each exposed service, establish whether public access is necessary to deliver the service. Restrict or remove unnecessary services and management access, while checking dependencies so a change does not interrupt public information or transactions. Revisit the inventory as systems, hosting arrangements, and third-party services change.
Separate public delivery from network management
A public website is not the same thing as a network management interface. CISA Binding Operational Directive (BOD) 23-02 concerns internet-exposed networked management interfaces used by authorized users to administer devices or networks. It applies to Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies: those agencies must remove covered interfaces from internet exposure or protect them with a separate Zero Trust policy enforcement point. CISA recommends that other stakeholders review the guidance, but the directive itself is not a universal requirement for every government website or government entity.
Rank #2
- Entry-Level Privacy Gateway: Designed for users who want simple online privacy protection at an affordable level—ideal for basic home networking and daily internet use.
- Secure Browsing for Everyday Needs: Perfect for email, social media, online shopping, and standard streaming—protecting your connection while keeping setup and operation easy.
- Lightweight Protection Against Common Online Threats: Helps reduce exposure to unwanted ads, trackers, and risky websites, improving online safety for your household.
- Simple Setup, No Technical Skills Required: Plug it in, follow the quick steps, and start using—an excellent choice for beginners who don’t want complicated network configurations.
- Decentralized VPN (DPN) Included – No Monthly Payments: Get built-in decentralized VPN access with lifetime free usage, helping you stay private without paying recurring subscription fees
How do you keep the website stack secure?
Patch exposed systems and replace unsupported products
Track support and security updates for operating systems, web servers, CMS platforms, plug-ins, frameworks, libraries, appliances, and hosting components. Prioritize known exploited vulnerabilities and components reachable from the internet. Apply security updates promptly, especially for critical vulnerabilities affecting public-facing or legacy systems. If a product no longer receives security support, plan to replace it rather than treating it as a normal patching backlog item.
CISA’s Internet Exposure Reduction Guidance calls for patching and replacing unsupported software or devices. Its August 29, 2025 Four Cybersecurity Essentials for SLTTs also emphasizes prompt critical updates, particularly for public-facing and legacy systems. Maintain an owner and remediation status for each exposed component so that gaps are visible and actionable.
Protect the build and publishing path
Treat website code, infrastructure configuration, deployment pipelines, dependencies, and secrets as part of the attack surface. Restrict who can publish to production, review changes before release, protect credentials used by build and deployment systems, and keep production privileges separate from routine work. A compromised publishing account or deployment secret can alter public content even when the web server itself is patched.
How should you protect staff and administrator accounts?
Require strong MFA on consequential accounts
Require MFA for staff and privileged accounts that can manage hosting, DNS, cloud control planes, content publishing, code repositories, or remote access. Prefer phishing-resistant MFA where supported. CISA’s October 2022 fact sheet, Implementing Phishing-Resistant MFA, identifies phishing-resistant MFA as the most secure form and notes the federal policy requirement for agencies. Confirm current agency policy and procurement requirements before choosing products or setting implementation deadlines.
CISA’s August 2025 SLTT guidance identifies physical security keys as a preferred MFA method. A FIDO2/WebAuthn security key is one option; choose through approved identity and procurement processes rather than treating a particular brand or model as endorsed.
| MFA option | What the cited CISA guidance establishes | Practical comparison |
|---|---|---|
| Physical security key | CISA’s SLTT guidance lists physical keys and prefers them among the listed methods; it describes them as offering strong phishing protection. | Consider compatibility with identity platforms, user accessibility, replacement and recovery procedures, and administrator management. |
| Authenticator app with number matching | CISA’s SLTT guidance lists this as an MFA option. | Assess device availability, enrollment and recovery, platform compatibility, and the method’s suitability under agency policy. |
| One-time code | CISA’s SLTT guidance lists one-time codes as an option; it does not describe them as preferred over physical security keys. | Check the specific method and agency requirements. Do not assume that every MFA method provides phishing resistance. |
For any option, compare phishing resistance, accessibility, compatibility, account recovery, replacement procedures, manageability, and applicable assurance or procurement requirements. Avoid locking administrators into a method without a workable recovery process.
Limit privileges and review access
Give each account only the access needed for its role. Use separate administrator accounts rather than everyday browsing identities, remove inactive accounts promptly, and monitor privileged actions. Apply the same scrutiny to third-party and service accounts that can publish content, change DNS, or alter infrastructure.
What should you monitor after hardening?
Establish a baseline for expected authentication, administrative actions, web traffic, and application behavior. Monitor ingress and egress traffic, sign-ins, publishing and configuration changes, and application errors. Investigate activity that departs from that baseline, especially unexpected privileged access or changes to public content.
Repeat exposure reviews as the environment changes. New domains, cloud resources, APIs, vendor integrations, or staging environments can create exposure outside the original website inventory. CISA’s June 2025 guidance calls for routine reassessment rather than a one-time scan.
Do these 3 things before closing this tab:
1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsBest Value
- The FortiGate 60F series offers an excellent Security and SD-WAN solution in a compact fanless desktop form factor for enterprise branch offices and mid-sized businesses
- Protect against cyber threats with industry-leading secure SD-WAN in a simple, affordable, and easy to deploy solution
- Security Identifies thousands of applications inside network traffic for deep inspection and granular policy enforcement Protects against malware, exploits, and malicious websites in both
- Provides Zero Touch Integration with Security Fabric's Single Pane of Glass Management Predefined compliance checklist analyzes the deployment and highlights the best practices to improve overall
What extra safeguards apply if the website uses AI?
First map what the AI component can access and do. A public-information chatbot has a different risk profile from an agent that can query internal records, access account data, call APIs, or change systems. NIST’s 2025 adversarial machine-learning taxonomy includes attack categories such as evasion, poisoning, privacy attacks, and misuse for generative AI. CISA and the UK National Cyber Security Centre’s November 26, 2023 Guidelines for Secure AI System Development emphasize secure-by-design development and operation.
Set boundaries around data and tools
- Identify whether the component handles public information, user-submitted content, internal records, personal information, or credentials.
- Limit data access and tool permissions to what the intended task requires; do not give a public-facing AI feature broad access to administrative systems by default.
- Keep AI components separated from sensitive systems and data according to agency risk decisions.
- Require human authorization for consequential actions, such as changing records or triggering administrative workflows.
Test misuse and failure paths
Threat-model prompt injection and other misuse, poisoned or untrusted inputs, data exposure, model evasion, and abuse of tool permissions. Test how the component behaves when it receives hostile instructions or cannot safely complete a task. Log relevant activity, define how to disable an integration, and verify that access restrictions still hold when the model produces an unexpected response. These are risk-management measures informed by NIST and CISA guidance, not a single website-specific checklist prescribed by those sources.
When comparing AI hosting or integration options, assess data sensitivity, provider access, retention and training terms, tool controllability, testing evidence, logging, human oversight, and the ability to isolate or shut down the component. This is a decision framework for agency review, not a formal scored procurement standard.
How do you prepare to respond to an incident?
Include AI-related integrations in incident planning when they are part of the service. Make sure the response team knows how to preserve relevant logs, disable a compromised integration, rotate affected credentials, communicate service impacts, and restore known-good content and systems. Assign responsibility for those actions before an incident rather than relying on ad hoc decisions during one.
CISA’s January 14, 2025 announcement of the JCDC AI Cybersecurity Collaboration Playbook describes voluntary processes for sharing information about AI-related cybersecurity incidents and vulnerabilities among government, industry, and international partners. Treat participation and sharing as voluntary and follow applicable agency processes for handling incident information.
Quick Recap
What should a government website team do first?
- Inventory exposure: identify internet-reachable assets and name an owner for each.
- Decide what must be public: verify the purpose of each exposed service and restrict unnecessary access.
- Address vulnerable and unsupported systems: prioritize exposed components, critical updates, and replacement of unsupported products.
- Protect high-impact accounts: require strong MFA, favor phishing-resistant methods where supported, and limit privileged access.
- Monitor and reassess: track authentication, changes, traffic, and errors, then repeat exposure reviews as the service evolves.
- Review AI separately: if the site uses AI, map its data and permissions, test misuse paths, and prepare to isolate or disable it.
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
