The agency protecting the U.S. against threats gets an "F"

Sonja Ryst


Dept. of Homeland IT Insecurity
The agency protecting the U.S. against threats gets an "F" when it comes to safeguarding its own IT systems. What's being done about it?

You think you've got password woes? Folks who work for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Information Services have to remember as many as 17 passwords to get into their networks. One poor soul at the agency, part of the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security, had to use four different passwords just to check e-mail, according to a recent report by the DHS Office of Inspector General.

Besides being a hassle, the trouble with so many different passwords is that they expire and have to be reset. Too often, they get written down. And so a tool for protecting computer security actually can make information-technology systems less secure.

FAILURE EVERYWHERE. It's just that type of potential breach that earned the Dept. of Homeland Security a big fat "F" in computer-system security. For the third year running, the agency entrusted with protecting the U.S. from security threats of all forms received the lowest grade possible from a congressional oversight committee.

more at:
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2006/tc20060317_744239.htm