The recently released report by the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee found federal agencies “for decades” operated with badly managed and outdated information-technology infrastructure. The “scorecard” rates agencies on implementing provisions of the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act of 2014, The Hill newspaper reports.
Among the more pathetic performers — the departments of Education and Energy, along with NASA — all received failing grades. The Department of Homeland Security managed a “C” and the State Department, where former Secretary Hillary Clinton used a private email server, received a “D.”
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which this year “left the barn door open” to hackers, who stole addresses, health and financial information from millions of Americans, got a “D.” Now that the damage has been done, OPM has announced months later that it has hired a cybersecurity expert to modernize its aged computer systems.
This inexcusable failure to provide basic cybersecurity demands a systemwide house cleaning, starting with those who have failed miserably in their responsibility to safeguard the public's data.
©2015 The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (Greensburg, Pa.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
