Obama talks cybersecurity, but Federal IT system breaches increasing [Updated]

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/01/obama-talks-cybersecurity-but-federal-it-systems-breaches-increase/

By David Kravets
Ars Technica
Jan 20, 2015

Update: This post was updated Tuesday evening to reflect comments the 
president made during his State of the Union address:

President Barack Obama urged Congress and the American public to embrace 
cyber security legislation during his State of the Union address Tuesday 
evening. The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, known as 
CISPA, was unveiled by Obama a week ago and is controversial because it 
allows companies to share cyber threat information with the Department of 
Homeland Security—data that might include their customers' private 
information.

"No foreign nation, no hacker, should be able to shut down our networks, 
steal our trade secrets, or invade the privacy of American families, 
especially our kids. We are making sure our government integrates 
intelligence to combat cyber threats, just as we have done to combat 
terrorism. So tonight, I urge this Congress to finally pass the 
legislation we need to better meet the evolving threat of cyber-attacks, 
combat identity theft, and protect our children’s information. That should 
be a bipartsan effort. If we don’t act, we’ll leave our nation and our 
economy vulnerable. If we do, we can continue to protect the technologies 
that have unleashed untold opportunities for people around the globe," the 
president said without identifying his CISPA proposal and others by name.

New research out earlier Tuesday from George Mason University, however, 
calls into question how effective Obama's proposal would be. That's 
because the federal government's IT professionals as a whole have "a poor 
track record in maintaining good cybersecurity and information-sharing 
practices." What's more, the federal bureaucracy "systematically" fails to 
meet its own federal cybersecurity standards despite billions of dollars 
in funding.

According to a paper by Eli Dourado, a George Mason research fellow, and 
Andrea Castillo, manager of the university's Technology Policy Program:

[...]

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