The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found in their review of Department of Defense (DoD) cybersecurity initiatives, that the department dropped the ball by failing to fully implement and track key security measures.
These initiatives are related to what has been dubbed cyber hygiene, a set of best practices for mitigating the most common cybersecurity threats.
The recent GAO report found that within DoD's "Culture and Compliance Initiative" that 7 out of 11 tasks were not fully completed. Another DoD initiative called the "Cyber Discipline" plan had 17 key tasks of which only 10 have been implemented, four have not, and GAO could not determine the status of the remaining three tasks because of unclear methods used to track their progress.
A third program was cyber awareness training for service members and DoD civilians in which 16 components were reviewed, finding that 14 of them were lacking needed information.
"The Department of Defense has not fully implemented three of its key initiatives and practices aimed at improving cyber hygiene," the GAO report concluded.
Additionally, the GAO report says that DoD identified the most common cyber warfare techniques used by America's adversaries as well as the best practices to safeguard their own systems from attack. "However, the department does not know the extent to which these practices have been implemented," the GAO report said.
This comes at a time when DoD and increasingly reliant on working remotely in order to implement social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. DoD has already doubled down on telework, with Chief Information Officer Dana Deasy saying that "the telework capability that might outlive the pandemic will be related to enhanced network capability, and will also include a larger base of teleworking equipment."
If telework becomes a new norm for soldiers and civilians in the Department of Defense, it means that more potentially sensitive information will likely be transmitted electronically and making it susceptible to interception.
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Reach Jack Murphy: jack@connectingvets.com or @JackMurphyRGR.
