Fergie's Tech Blog

U.S. Government Auditors Knock Federal Cybersecurity Plan

J. Nicholas Hoover writes on InformationWeek:

The federal government could do a better job defining and coordinating its recently partially declassified Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative, according to a report [.pdf] from the government's own auditors.

The new report, released by the Government Accountability Office last week, found that although the White House and federal agencies have made strides in planning and coordinating the 12-point program by creating interagency working groups like the Joint Interagency Cyber Task Force, the plan lacks definition in some places and doesn't cover the full scope of federal cybersecurity needs.

Among the key challenges for the CNCI: defining roles and responsibilities. For example, then-acting White House cybersecurity policy advisor Melissa Hathaway, in an interview with the GAO, noted an ad hoc, uncoordinated response to July 2009 distributed denial of service attacks targeting government Web sites.

posted by Fergie @ 3/08/2010 03:05:00 PM