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President Barack Obama said \"significant vulnerabilities\" exist and will continue to accelerate in government and private sector systems, unless changes are made.
Five agencies score zero on using strong authentication with their IT networks. That's according to the White House's annual compliance review of the Federal Information Security Management Act. Nextgov reports three of those agencies had cybersecurity breaches in recent years. Simon Szykman is chief technology officer for the federal services division at Attain, and former chief information officer of the Commerce Department. He broke down the results from the 2014 FISMA review on In Depth with Francis Rose.
Federal agency Inspectors General are submitting annual reports to meet the requirements of the Federal Information Security Management Act. But your agency's networks may not actually be more secure because of that compliance and those reports. Those IG reports are still good news though, says Dan Mintz, former Transportation Department Chief Information Officer and now principal at ESEM Consulting. Dan tells In Depth with Francis Rose that's because the IGs haven't always been so hands-on with FISMA compliance.
The Veterans Affairs Department will not receive the final results for its 2014 FISMA audit until next spring, but auditors already have informed IT officials that they've identified material weaknesses for the 16th year in a row. Department IT officials say progress on closing IG recommendations and securing their systems and data is real.
The Homeland Security Department has reviewed about 18 new or improved cybersecurity tools or technologies that may be added to the continuous diagnostics and mitigation program (CDM). John Streufert, the director of Federal Network Resilience at National Protection and Programs Directorate in DHS, said CDM is not delayed and on track to deliver results.
In fiscal 2015 FISMA guidance, OMB is trying to close a big hole exposed during the government's reaction to the Heartbleed vulnerability. The White House is giving DHS the authority to regularly conduct proactive scans of certain civilian agency networks. DHS made it clear to Congress earlier this year the delay in getting permission from agencies to scan their networks cost them days in response time during Heartbleed.
The Senate would like to grant new powers to federal chief information officers and update federal IT laws that haven't gotten much attention for the past dozen years. Those are a couple of the effects of new legislation the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs approved recently. One of the bills is the Senate version of the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act -- the other is an update to the Federal Information Security Modernization Act, which Senators have been trying to modify for the past several years, without much success. She said on In Depth with Francis Rose the proposals are a big step in the right direction.
Scott Gaydos, chief technologist, Federal Healthcare, U.S. Public Sector, HP Enterprise Services, discusses how his company can help your agency with its cloud initiatives. June 24, 2014
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee members will introduce and markup the Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014 Wednesday. The bill would require OMB to rescind a major section of Circular A-130 in order to fix long-standing complaints with FISMA's reauthorization requirements.
In this edition of Inside the Reporter's Notebook, Executive Editor Jason Miller shares news and buzz about the IT and acquisition communities. Senate lawmakers prepare to mark-up IT reform bill next week. CIO's spend time at camp where OMB and others emphasize the word of the year: effectiveness.
The 2013 FISMA report to Congress shows the Veterans Affairs Department continues to struggle with cybersecurity and has more than 6,000 items on its plans of actions and milestones and continued weaknesses in access and configuration management controls. VA CIO Stephen Warren details several initiatives to address many of the 35 recommendations.
Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said Thursday the committee plans to mark up a bill on May 21 to give DHS more tools to hire cyber workers more easily.
Suzanne Spaulding, the nominee to be the deputy undersecretary of the National Protection and Programs Directorate, told Senate lawmakers DHS had to reduce the number of federal devices that will be covered by the CDM program because of budget shortfalls.
An update to the Federal Information Security Management Act and the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2013 passed through the House Tuesday night. The Cybersecurity Information Sharing and Protection Act also passed, but faces a veto threat because of concerns over data protection.