DHS Gets Another "F" In Cyber Security

An anonymous reader writes "For the third straight year, the Department of Homeland Security -- which is charged with charting the federal government's cyber security agenda -- earned a grade of "F" for computer security from a key congressional oversight committee, according to a story at Washingtonpost.com. Not only did the overall government-wide computer security grade remain flat (at a barely-passing "D+" but several agencies -- mostly those on the "front lines in the war on terror" -- actually managed to fare worse this year."

Comments

Obviously...

[darnok]

...they're too busy ensuring the security of US citizens to worry about minor details like ... the security of US citizens.

Muhammed drawings

[mixenmaxen]

Well then, time to deface some .gov websites with drawings of the prophet Muhammed...

Funding

[Detritus]

Many departments are run on a shoe-string basis. While the agency, as a whole, may have received a budget increase. That may mean that 20% of the agency saw a major increase in funding, 40% saw their funding stay the same, and 40% saw a 10% cut in their budget, again. Year after year of budget cuts can be very corrosive. You lose all of your support people and the survivors get new tasks that they may not have the time or skills to do properly. The infrastructure becomes a collection of obsolete equipment held together with bubble gum and bailing wire.

At one office that I worked in, we made regular trips to the agency's excess equipment warehouse to scrounge for parts that we used to build "new" (newer) computers. That was the only way that we could obtain computing hardware. There was no money in the budget for PCs, even though we were a software development group. We provided our own hardware and software support, by necessity.

resembles department culture as a whole?

[pimpimpim]

FTA: Most [agencies] are spending so much on the paperwork exercises that they don't have a lot of money left over to fix the problems they've identified.

It figures. Institutions like the DHS are completely focused on administrative, paper-tiger, security. Which in the end doesn't end up in a real security for anyone, but instead a freedom-diminishing administrative load on everyone.

The National Science Foundation and the General Services Administration each saw their scores rise from a C-plus in 2004 to an A last year. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Labor earned A-plus grades in 2005, up from B and B-minus respectively.

Good to see there are competent people out there, it should not be impossible. It's just sad that the more 'safety-critical' the organization is, the more sloppy they get on critical points in their organization.

Re:Do we live in a developed country?

[quarkscat]

Of course this country has slipped backwards from being a "developed country" into merely
a "developing country". That is a basic tenet of the neocon agenda - globalization of the
economy. High tech and skilled labor jobs are shifted to the lowest labor cost country --
whichever can barely "get the job done" and at the lowest price "wins the contract". USA
employers who cannot shift their labor costs overseas are busy importing cheaper labor
under increased numbers of L1-A and H1-B visas. That, or busy jumping on the neocon
bandwagon to legalize the 28 million illegal aliens that are already in this country. Hand-in-
hand with the influx of illegal alien labor is a massive spike in identity theft and fraudulent
identity documents. The GWB administration favors hiring fellow neocons, regardless of
either their real CV or their civil ethics. Helping to forward their neocon agenda by any means
possible outweighs any concept of good governance, or even of the Constitutional balance
of power, let alone the Bill of Rights.

Why, considering the response to 9-11, to the illegal Iraq war, the "Pharmacutical Company
Welfare Act of 2003", or the Gulf Coast-Katrina disaster, would any sentient being ever be
surprised by what the GWB administration is incapable of doing right?

The Department of Homeland Security is a non sequitor at best (oxymoronic?), and little more
than a tool of the emerging National Corporate Socialist state's grab for absolute executive
power, at worst.

...this is because there is NO threat.

[pixelone]

..other than the consequences of Bush's actions in the mid east. If the country was under a legitimate threat, then a lot of funding would go into many processes.. Bush is simply artificially exacerbating the threat by stepping on an ant's nest. Why ? they are far from stupid. This keeps them in power, and to the masses justifies their actions. Iraq was terrorist free, now it is creating 100s every day. It is this artificially created threat that is BUSH's masterplan,

Be careful what you say.

[Stephen Samuel]

Criticizing DHS can be seen as being unpatriotic.