Federal CISOs lack emphasis on internal security breaches

Friday, May 1, 2009

Federal CISOs are most concerned with external attacks on government websites and data security, but lack an appropriate emphasis on the threat of internal security breaches, according to a new report.

Based on a survey of half of federal CISOs, the report by the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium - referred to as (ISC)2 - found that the government's network security professionals continue to face organizational challenges, including inadequate resources to do the job, undue focus on compliance reporting and unnecessary red tape at the expense of addressing known problems.

Although CISOs are highly motivated, feel they are making some progress and are mostly happy in their roles, the (ISC)2 report said CISOs may underestimate the more serious threat of internal attacks.

Half the CISOs believe the government is "not getting ahead" of the attackers, while the other half believes we "are turning the corner," the survey found.

The report said a compliance culture must be replaced with a risk-management approach to security, yet the CISOs and their overseers in the federal agencies and in Congress have more work to do in educating officials that risks cannot be eliminated, only managed.

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