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The Defense Department is moving ahead with new rules for defense contractors aimed at limiting damage from insiders with security clearance. Jim Harris, senior counsel for the law firm Holland and Knight, joins Federal Drive with Tom Temin to offer his insight.
Current and former intelligence community officials say they're not getting the buy-in they need from their top leadership — or the guidance they need to use begin using social media — in their insider threat and security clearance programs.
The investigations process is to blame for higher security clearance processing times at the beginning of 2016 and end of 2015. Challenges with culture, resources and legal questions are also pushing agencies farther and farther off schedule in standing up their own insider threat programs.
Initial secret and top-secret cases took an average of 95 and 179 days to process, respectively, by the end of last fiscal year, according to a fourth quarter update on Performance.gov.
William Van Vleet III, CEO of Haystax Technology, makes the case for analyzing employee behaviors at the keyboard and away from the office.
Establishing insider threat programs was a key Defense recommendation after the 2013 Navy Yard shootings. Some companies that do business with the government are far ahead and waiting for agencies to catch up. DoD officials now consider aerospace giant Lockheed Martin's program as a model.
Some agencies are further along in implementing insider threat programs than others, said Patricia Larsen, co-director of the National Insider Threat Task Force. Progress is slower at some civilian agencies, while programs within the intelligence community are more advanced.
The House Committee on Homeland Security favorably recommended more than a dozen bills aimed at strengthening national security and improving management and oversight within DHS.
A major element of the Defense Department’s new program to better detect insider threats will be up and running by next month, at least on an initial operating capability basis.
Michael Vickers, the undersecretary of Defense for intelligence, said cybersecurity and terrorism are his top two short- and long-term concerns. He said protecting space-based systems is becoming more important than ever. Vickers also wants to continue to transform the military intelligence community to meet ever-changing threats.
From Google searches to LinkedIn connections, a wealth of publicly available online information can reveal a person's mindset, and possibly tip off the government to the next Edward Snowden or Aaron Alexis. The intelligence community has done some testing, but a final policy remains elusive. Contractors are hesitant.
Quite a number of insider threat incidents have happened because basic security principles were absent, overlooked or ignored. Why Jim Henderson says it's time we get back to the basics.
It's hard to tell how many agencies are actually checking all the boxes on the Obama administration's plan for detecting disgruntled or rogue employees. Agencies were supposed to have taken initial steps to set up insider threat programs by June 30, according to an update posted on Performance.gov. But it's impossible to know the number of agencies who met the initial criteria so far. The progress update says that information is classified.
NSA, State and nearly every other agency are developing "fixes" to protect unauthorized employees from taking data. Experts say employees need to understand why the rules are in place and how they benefit both the organization and worker. OMB says one way to improve the situation is by reducing the number of federal employees with security clearances-an initiative that already is underway.