WASHINGTON—A new report indicates that nearly 75% of federal agencies are still woefully unprepared to handle cyber security risks of any kind.
This all comes on the heels of the United States government eliminating the position of federal cybersecurity czar earlier this year.
While the report from the Office of the Management and Budget (OMB), which was prepared in collaboration of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), did not specifically call out which agencies were failing to respond to global cyber threats, it did suggest that the failures, gaps and inadequacies were relatively evenly distributed across the entire federal government. In fact, 71 of the 96 federal agencies reviewed were deemed to be “at risk” or “at high risk” of a cyber attack. The report defined “at risk” to mean that there were significant gaps in security preparedness, while “at high risk” means that fundamental processes were not even in place to deal with cyber security risks, CPO Magazine reported.
The final conclusion of the report was that the situation surrounding cyber security risks was “untenable” and needed to be addressed immediately. Federal agencies had little situational awareness, had few standardized processes in place for managing (or even reporting) attacks, and failed particularly when it came to encrypting data, CPO Magazine reported.
“It all paints a picture of federal agencies being unable to respond in the event of a major cyber attack,” stated CPO Magazine in its analysis.