The US Pentagon Has Numerous Security Gaps
The Pentagon has 266 cyber security exposures and vulnerabilities that have not been attended to or secured in recent years. These significant problems in the Pentagon’s IT electronic systems have put the Pentagon at risk of hacks and data theft.
The Defense Department published the report on January 9th and it reveals thet a number of these issues have been a problem for a least 10 years.
However, the Defence Dept.’s IT Auditors also found that other areas of the IT systems had been security and penetration tested and were working very well.
But for more than a decade old, there remains unaddressed IT issues that should have been addresses in the Defense Department’s networks, according to the Defence Department’s Internal ombudsmen. These 266 cyber insecurities had already been highlighted in a number of reports between July 2017 and June 2018 and some of these IT problems go back over a decade to 2008.
The Auditors said that a lot of the problems are because the IT and cyber monitoring and management policies were not very effective.
The unclassified reports identified improvements in the asset management, information protection processes and procedures, identity management and access control, and security continuous monitoring. The DoD has taken action to strengthen its cybersecurity posture by implementing actions to address 19 of the 159 recommendations made in those reports. In particular, the DoD needs to continue focusing on managing cybersecurity risks related to governance, asset management, information protection processes and procedures, identity management and access control, security continuous monitoring, detection processes, and communications.
The largest number of weaknesses identified in this year’s summary were related to governance, which allows an organisation to inform its management of cybersecurity risk through the policies, procedures, and processes to manage and monitor the organizations regulatory, legal, risk, environmental, and operational requirements.
Without proper governance, the DoD cannot ensure that it effectively identifies and manages cybersecurity risk as it continues to face a growing variety of cyber threats from adversaries, such as offensive cyberspace operations used to disrupt, degrade, or destroy targeted information systems.”
The auditors explain that a series of issues have been ignored and have not been tackled over the previous years. The department, has not done enough to comply with the cybersecurity framework developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The Defense Contract Management Agency has not properly trained its cyber specialists so that they receive the required certifications.
“Without adequate controls … the department cannot ensure that all of its systems, devices, personnel, and vulnerabilities are identified and manages,” auditors wrote.
The Defence Department is now begun work to upgrade all IT systems so as to assist the Agency when it needs to address cyber threats and attacks. This not a subject that only effects the US Department of Defence and if other governments did an independent audit of their IT systems they would also fine significant issues that have not been addressed.
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