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GCN Home > 06/16/03 issue

As threats rise, feds shelter their IT

By Richard W. Walker, GCN Staff

Via enterprise architectures, managers see way to build in security

These are the times that try the souls of government security managers.

The threat of cyberattacks on government systems is escalating as computers become ever more interconnected, use of the Internet increases, and attack technology becomes ever more sophisticated and readily available.

“Cyberspace is the nervous system of all this infrastructure we need to worry about,” said Howard Schmidt, former vice chairman of the President’s Critical Infrastructure Board.
Howard Schmidt
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“Without security, you have no privacy. Security is the way you reach that goal.”

—Former Administration Adviser Howard Schmidt
The FBI’s growing list of potential sources of attacks includes criminal groups, foreign intelligence services, hackers, politically motivated hacktivists, disgruntled insiders and virus writers.

Even worse is the threat of swarming attacks—potentially catastrophic, simultaneous assaults on physical and network infrastructures.

Knock, knock

The number of computer security incidents reported to the CERT Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon University for the first quarter of this year was 42,586, already more than half the number reported for all of last year.

The reporting of incidents may have doubled in part because of improved detection technologies and increased systems monitoring, observers said.

But there is no question that more attackers are rapping unremittingly at government firewalls. One reason is simply that it’s getting easier to acquire weapons with which to break in.

“A hacker can literally download tools from the Internet and point and click to start an attack,” the General Accounting Office noted in a recent report to the House Government Reform Committee.

IT security is becoming a game of leapfrog, with the bad guys amassing growing numbers of more sophisticated tools, and agency officials constantly trying to stay ahead of them.

Federal spending on IT security products and services will continue to rise annually by 7 percent through 2008, according to market researcher Input of Reston, Va. Input predicts that federal security spending will increase from $4.2 billion this fiscal year to nearly $6 billion within five years.

But beyond more money, the Bush administration is pressing agencies to infuse security into all levels and aspects of agency business. IT security consciousness must be ubiquitous.

More news on related topics: Homeland Security, IT Infrastructure, Management, IT Security



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