U.S. Government 'Worse Than All Major Industries' on Cybersecurity

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <div style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">U.S. federal, state and local government agencies rank in last place in cybersecurity when compared against 17 major private industries, including transportation, retail and healthcare, according to a new report released Thursday.</span></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlEywrm5gAxnv1pvWQD1nBK6UmsZKDCYlVmH8LhEB7pFXMlvW5lUZ7mTJ8yRLi8bkbaf5_3kGHg2E9cBLUXXx71rQYiXV4caZbV75KWWZM4LfSGqOXsQz2jT3fthO69yC3Vs41Hmwua1Os/s1600/tech.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlEywrm5gAxnv1pvWQD1nBK6UmsZKDCYlVmH8LhEB7pFXMlvW5lUZ7mTJ8yRLi8bkbaf5_3kGHg2E9cBLUXXx71rQYiXV4caZbV75KWWZM4LfSGqOXsQz2jT3fthO69yC3Vs41Hmwua1Os/s400/tech.jpg" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The analysis, from venture-backed security risk benchmarking startup SecurityScorecard, measured the relative security health of government and industries across 10 categories, including vulnerability to malware infections, exposure rates of passwords and susceptibility to social engineering, such as an employee using corporate account information on a public social network.</span></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Educations, telecommunications and pharmaceutical industries also ranked low, the report found. Information services, construction, food and technology were among the top performers.</span></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Government agencies have struggled for years to keep pace with malicious hackers and insider threats, a challenge that came into focus after it was disclosed last year that more than 21 million individuals had their sensitive data pilfered during a breach at the Office of Personnel Management.</span></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Of the 600 government entities tracked, NASA performed the worst, the report found.</span></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">SecurityScorecard said it tracked 35 major data breaches across government from April 2015 to April 2016.</span></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">President Barack Obama has made improving cyber defenses a top priority of his remaining year in office. His administration asked Congress to dedicate $19 billion to cybersecurity in its fiscal 2017 budget proposal, which would include $3.1 billion for technology modernization at various federal agencies.</span></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Federal agencies scored most poorly on network security, software patching flaws and malware, according to SecurityScorecard, which said they may be more vulnerable to risk due to their large size.</span></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Of the 600 government entities tracked, NASA performed the worst, the report found. The space exploration agency was vulnerable to email spoofing and malware intrusions, among other weaknesses, according to SecurityScorecard's analysis.</span></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Post Credit: <b><i>N</i></b></span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b><i>bcnews</i></b></span></span></div> </div>

U.S. Government 'Worse Than All Major Industries' on Cybersecurity

U.S. federal, state and local government agencies rank in last place in cybersecurity when compared against 17 major private industries, i...

Read more »