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(InfoWorld) - More than half of IT leaders in the U.S. government are more confident about their agencies' cybersecurity capabilities than they were two years ago, according to a survey released Monday.
Despite a handful of high-profile government breaches this year, 58 percent of those surveyed believe their agencies are more secure, while just 12 percent feel less secure, according to the survey by Cisco Systems. The largest breach was the May 3 theft of a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs laptop and hard drive containing the personal information of 26.5 million military veterans. The hardware was recovered in late June.
However, the August phone survey of 200 U.S. government IT decision-makers also found they are putting more time into cybersecurity. Sixty-three percent of respondents said they are spending more time on security issues than they were two years ago.
"More folks are working at security and information assurance, often not as full-time jobs but as part of their jobs," said Daniel Kent, director of systems engineering, for Cisco's U.S. federal sales organization.
Funding concerns were identified by 67 percent of respondents as the top impediment to improving cybersecurity. Half of all respondents identified their existing security architectures and a lack of standards as major impediments, with just under half identifying a lack of management support and a lack of experienced staff as major barriers to improvement.
The problem with existing security architectures seems to be a lack of cohesiveness, Kent said. Agencies have been working on creating a "defense in depth" by buying products that fix targeted security problems, but respondents don't see how these piecemeal systems fit together, he said.
Survey respondents represented more than 45 U.S. agencies and included agency chief information officers, program managers, IT directors and managers, and line of business managers. All respondents had some level of responsibility for decision-making for network security.
Asked which security components were most important, 92 percent of respondents identified network firewalls, and 92 percent identified server and workstation security. Eighty-nine percent identified network intrusion detection technology, while 78 percent identified e-mail and messaging security. Seventy-eight percent also identified incident response capability, while 74 percent picked security audits.
Asked what security concerns keep them up at night, 46 percent said reduced operations because of security breaches, and 40 percent said a loss of employee or customer privacy due to data breaches. Another 39 percent said security concerns associated with remote or mobile workers.
Forty-eight percent said they were confident that automated software tools will address their agencies' security issues in the future, while 17 percent said they were not confident. Automated tools will allow IT workers to "do more with less," Kent said.
Market Connections conducted the survey, a follow-up to a November 2005 survey on government cybersecurity commissioned by Cisco. |
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ABTA Travel Convention special report: Website to be overhauled as part of revamp |
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At least 80 ethnic Indians are charged with illegal assembly for taking part in street protests in Malaysia. |
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British Energy has halved the time required to complete some of its basic
training programmes amid an acute shortage of experienced nuclear staff. |
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QinetiQ, the defence research business in which the chairman and chief
executive made more than £35 million on the flotation of the business, will
eliminate 400 jobs across the UK. |
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ANDREW FASTOW’S allegation that the NatWest Three were involved in the
financial deceits which brought down Enron does not mean the men are guilty.
But it does mean that they have a case to answer — a case which is rightly
being tried in the US. <br/>
<br/>
The US has had no particular beef with British businessmen. It seeks out
suspects of white-collar crime whoever they are, wherever they are. Kobi
Alexander, the chief executive of Comverse Technology, was apprehended this
week in Namibia, ending his two-month flight from American law enforcers
seeking to prosecute him for the back-dating of stock options. The “perp
walk” — the US practice of hand-cuffing and frog-marching a
multi-millionaire American executive out of his office and into a waiting
police car in full view of the waiting, tipped-off camera crews — has become
a regular feature of the nightly news in the US. Foreigners who do business
in America know full well that the Land of the Free is not nice to
criminals, nor even criminal suspects. <br/>
<br/>
The public outcry over the extradition of the NatWest Three — Gary Mulgrew,
David Bermingham and Giles Darby — has from the outset felt like a
misplaced, sometimes mendacious venting of national frustration at
Washington. <br/>
<br/>
The fact is that this case has nothing to do with the war in Iraq, with the
presidency of George W. Bush, with Tony Blair’s Atlanticist inclinations.
Even the esteemed British chief executives and chairmen who signed up to the
letter calling for fair trials abroad looked like suckers: their campaign
seemed to put patriotism, even a huffy anti-Americanism, before the due
process of law. <br/>
<br/>
Certainly, they had a just complaint: the British Government agreed an
extradition treaty without securing reciprocity from the US. But, for that,
more fool the British Government. It knows a pledge from the Administration
will not necessarily be honoured by Congress, particularly involving the
issue of extradition. <br/>
<br/>
Fastow’s claims against the three British men may be suspect. The quiet chief
financial officer of Enron has made a second career for himself shopping his
old acquaintances. In 2002, he was indicted on 78 counts of fraud,
money-laundering and conspiracy. Thanks to his “co-operation with the
authorities”, he has been sentenced to six years in prison. <br/>
<br/>
Nonetheless, Fastow’s legal deposition describes a “close, personal
relationship” with Mulgrew. Enron collapsed in 2001, undone by an intricate,
ingenious web of financial fraud. Fastow claims that, in his financial
dealings with the men as late as 2000, they “knew what I expected”. The
deposition seems to skewer the argument that the men should be tried in
Britain. They may have to face allegations of defrauding their former
British employers too, but if they played a part in Enron’s downfall, then
they have a case to answer in America as well. There is a principle at
stake, one which underpins global capitalism and one which is as dear to
every Briton as it is to every American: respect for the due process of law. |
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A clinical research firm locates its new global headquarters in Glasgow and vows to create 240 jobs over three years. |
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Hundreds of workers at the Scottish base of Prudential are told their jobs will be transferred to Capita. |
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A youth who beat a woman to death had been electronically tagged for a previous offence at the time of the attack. |
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Aerospace company Shorts Bombardier says it is create 330 new jobs at its Belfast plant. |
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