Modernization or Mission Failure: Why “Good Enough” Government Tech is Over

It’s tempting to think cyber risks are just a technical problem. They’re not. Legacy infrastructure is a strategic liability. When parts of critical systems are decades old and unpatched, every data flow, API, user interface, or integration becomes an attack surface, a lever for disruption, espionage, or outage. 

• In 2024, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center logged 859,532 complaints and a total of $16.6B in losses.  

• IBM’s 2024 Cost of a Data Breach report puts the average cost of a breach at $4.88M, up 10% year over year. 

• In FY22, federal agencies reported over 30,000 IT security incidents to the Department of Homeland Security.   

Behind those numbers lie real consequences. For government systems, the stakes are even higher when an incident occurs: stolen or corrupted data, mission delays, threats to critical infrastructure, national security implications, and cascading trust failures. A vulnerability in a legacy module can cascade into broader collapse — or worse, a silent breach that goes undetected until it’s too late.  

Modernization gives you more than a patched-up perimeter. It lets you embed zero-trust architectures, continuous detection and response, automated intrusion hunting, and resilient-by-design systems. It shifts your posture from reactive to anticipatory. 

But security is only part of the equation. A bulletproof system is not effective if it’s draining budgets and constraining agency performance. 

Legacy infrastructure doesn't just expose risk, it weighs agencies down. 

Consider this: each year, the federal government invests over $100 billion on IT and cybersecurity. Yet 80% goes into operations and maintenance — patching, propping up, and propping open existing systems.  

That means only 20% of IT dollars are left for innovation, modernization, or mission enablement. 

Within that O&M burden, aging systems grow exponentially more expensive: hardware fails, vendor support vanishes, integration points break, languages become obsolete, security patching becomes impossible, and architectural debt compounds. 

In its 2025 update, GAO notes that of the 10 “critical” federal legacy systems flagged in 2019, only 3 have been modernized. The remaining 7 systems still use outdated languages like COBOL, run on unsupported hardware, and carry known vulnerabilities.  

These numbers aren’t bureaucratic trivia, they represent a massive drag on mission agility. When modernization is deferred, progress slows, innovation stalls, and every future upgrade becomes harder. 

The promise of modernization: consolidate, connect, simplify, automate, retire redundant systems, and restructure so you spend less on doing the same, and more on doing new things. 

The real payoff arrives when technology moves from cost centers to mission accelerators. 

The mission of government agencies rarely waits. Disasters strike, conflicts evolve, and crises don’t pause while systems sync overnight. Decisions made on stale or siloed data aren’t just inefficiencies — they’re liabilities that cost time, resources, and in some cases, lives. 

On the battlefield, warfighters often have more advanced tools in their personal lives than in their command centers. Outdated systems, disconnected networks, and data locked in silos slow coordination, obscure visibility, and erode decision advantage. In modern warfare, this lag creates a real and growing vulnerability. 

Modernization is how we close the gap. Done right, modernization can enable old and new to work as a unified system, preserving what’s still effective while eliminating the bottlenecks that hold mission back. By adopting secure, modular, data-driven systems, agencies move from reactive to predictive operations. The goal isn’t always to rip and replace legacy, it’s to connect it into a seamless operational environment with emerging capabilities.  

• The DOD’s Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) concept is a compelling example: link sensors, decision-makers, and shooters across domains through interoperable, real-time data flows.  

• Think border operations: modern architectures can ingest video, sensor streams, migrant tracking, and cross-reference intelligence to dynamically allocate resources and preempt crises. 

Modernization is about changing not just what agencies see, but when they see it, and how fast they can act on it. 

In a digitally enabled mission environment, intelligence is fused, decisions are agile, operations are adaptive, and field officers don’t wait for the next batch job. That becomes a game-changer in speed, accuracy, and confidence. 

This is the true promise of modernization: a government that moves faster than the challenges it faces.