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Computer Security Lacking at Homeland Security
peter303 writes "The New York Times (reg. required) reports that computer backup procedures are woefully inadequate at 19 centers of the Department of Homeland Security. Should this agency strive to be good example for the rest of the country and protect against extreme hackers? " From the article: "Adequate backups were lacking for networks that screen airline passengers, that inspect goods moving across borders and that communicate with department employees and outside officials.
Those same agencies, the auditors found, have in most cases failed to prepare sufficiently written disaster recovery plans that would guide operations if a main office or computer system was knocked out."
This reminds me of a story. I once worked for a company that specialized in tape backup software, name withheld. (I worked on Long Island then, not the on the plains of CHEYENNE, so don't try to guess the name of the company.) A few months after I stopped working there, I received a phone call from my ex-manager that went something like this:
Mgr: So how's it going? Blah blah blah...
Me: It's fine. Blah blah blah...
Mgr: So..um..did you ever "borrow" a copy of the source code to the Disaster Recovery solution that you single-handedly wrote? You know, for "posterity" reasons?
Me: Of course I didn't. That wouldn't be ethical for sure and probably would be illegal. Why do you ask?
Mgr: Well, it seems that the hard drive that your machine used crashed and we don't have a backup.