[ga] Congress Grills US Agencies On Attacks at State and Commerce Depts. And On Weak Federal Cyber Security

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

All,

 See:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticleBasic&articleId=9017183

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/19/AR2007041901898.html

 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18186800/

(April 19, 2007)
The House Homeland Security Committee's subcommittee on Emerging Threats

and Cybersecurity held a hearing on April 19 that put weaknesses in
federal cyber security in stark relief. "We don't know the scope of our
networks," said subcommittee chairman Langevin, "We don't know who's
inside our networks. We don't know what information has been stolen. We
need to get serious about this threat to our national security."  The
purpose of this hearing was to afford House members the opportunity to
understand how deeply federal systems have been penetrated and what the
Department of Homeland Security and others are doing to stop the
compromises. The hearings focused on last year's attacks on networks at
the State Department and the Commerce Department. Both House members and

witnesses agreed that agencies in compliance with FISMA requirements are

not secure.  Agency witnesses said FISMA measures the wrong things and
Congresswoman Senior security coordinator for the State Department's
Bureau of Diplomatic Security Donald R. Reid said that State Department
computer systems were breached when an employee in Asia opened a Word
attachment to a targeted email. The Microsoft Word document exploited a
zero-day vulnerability inthat was not patched by Microsoft for months.

Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 134k members/stakeholders strong!)
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