US Contractors Struggling With Pentagon Cyber Security Standards
The US federal government relies on external service providers to help carry a wide range of government tasks using cyber and digital systems and many federal contractors, routinely process, store, and transmit sensitive federal information in their systems to support the delivery of essential products and services to federal agencies.
These include financial services lik web connectivity, email services; processing security clearances, healthcare data, providing cloud services, developing communications, satellites and weapons systems. Federal information is also frequently provided to or shared with entities such as State and local governments, colleges and universities as well as independent research organisations.
Foreign nations have clearly recognised that one of the best pathways to hacking and stealing US government technology is by targeting its industrial base.
Now Foreign countries are actively targeting and compromising US contractors so often that the Department of Defense asked the National Institute of Standards and Technology to develop custom security guidance to address the problem.
The Pentagon is making big moves in an effort to improve cybersecurity for its industrial base. However, the department's biggest roadblocks early on may be the same confusion, doubt and uneven compliance from contractors that led to the vulnerabilities in the first place.
Nine months ago the US Defence Department (DoD), said contractors not up to date on cybersecurity standards will only get a pass from the DoD for a short period before the DoD will begin auditing companies’ cybersecurity procedures that want to win contracts and it plans to start within the next 18 months, according to Ellen Lord, DoD undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment.
Some small companies are struggling to meet the Pentagon’s cyber network security rules, and even larger contractors aren’t doing as well as they think they are according a recent DoD study.
One reason may be that big companies tend to give their smaller subcontractors a lot of data they don’t need, which then becomes vulnerable to foreign hackers. In 2016, hackers stole sensitive data about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter from an Australian subcontractor. That and similar cases prompted the Pentagon to issue New rules for handling such information. By Jan. 1, 2018, companies were supposed to have a plan for meeting these new standards.
The Pentagon has been warning companies that they will lose business if they or their suppliers do not meet the rules.
Areas in which companies are having particular trouble meeting the standards include multi-factor authentication and FIPS-validated encryption. Even full compliance doesn’t mean a company’s networks are safe from thieves and officials from the Department of Defense and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are producing new draft cyber security guidance for contractor systems deemed high value assets to comply with thw Pentagon's Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) program.
Defense One: Federal News Network: Defense Systems: FCW: NIST:
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