Coviello: Better times ahead for government IT security

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.gcn.com/online/vol1_no1/47612-1.html

By William Jackson
GCN.com
11/18/08

Government has increased its productivity with the use of information 
technology, but at the cost of greater threats to information systems, 
according to Art Coviello, president and chief executive officer of RSA 
Security Inc. of Bedford, Mass.

"We have created a degree of openness in our systems that increase the 
risks," Coviello said, but added that agencies have not kept up with the 
job of managing those risks.

Coviello, in Washington to meet with government customers, added that he 
is heartened by an increased level of awareness in government of cyber 
risks and threats.

"More and more attention is being paid to criminal attacks on our 
intellectual property," he said. "I see a happy confluence of events 
with President Bush's call for a comprehensive cyber security initiative 
and Barack Obama.s heightened interest." The president-elect, he said, 
"was the first one to raise this as a serious campaign topic. What I 
though would happen in 2003 with the release of the Strategy to Secure 
Cyber Space is now gaining momentum."

Despite the 2003 strategy, the establishment of an assistant secretary 
for cyber security in the Homeland Security Department, and the passage 
of the Federal Information Security Management Act, government IT 
security is not better now than it was five years ago, Coviello said. 
But that has not been for a lack of effort. There has been a lack of 
adequate resources to effectively manage the risks that have been 
multiplying as information systems become more complex, connected and 
interactive.

[...]


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