It is good to start seeing more urgency place upon information security by the various government agencies.
As an example, last week U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff spoke at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce emphasized the need for increased cooperation between industry and government to secure the nation’s computer systems.
Here’s an excerpt from one of the news reports about the speech…
Here’s an excerpt from one of the news reports about the speech…
“Chertoff outlined three major computer security threats that comprise his standard stump speech on the topic: insider threats, hacking and supply chain sabotage. Increased communication can help solve all three problems, he said.
Fears of supply chain sabotage, the idea that manufacturers could deliberately manufacture computers loaded with malicious hardware, took on a new urgency this week with reports of massive credit card fraud in Europe. Police discovered hundreds of credit card readers, the type used at supermarket checkouts, had been modified to capture card numbers and send the information to Pakistan.
Chertoff also mentioned recent denial-of-service attacks against Georgia and Estonia, when government Web sites were flooded with junk data, knocking them offline. Those attacks left Georgians without critical information during the country’s conflict with Russia.
Cooperation between the government and companies that own telecommunications infrastructure can help stop such attacks. Chertoff also said the department would invite companies to use government security technology on their networks, but was careful to say the government would not require companies to install its software or share sensitive information.”
Read the entire article for some interesting information about the improvements being made to federal systems.
Tags: awareness and training, DHS, Information Security, IT compliance, IT training, Michael Chertoff, policies and procedures, privacy training, risk management, security training