DHS Moves to Ramp up Cybersecurity in Federal Agencies
The Department of Homeland Security says it plans to complete an analysis of the most vulnerable government computer networks in the next 45 days. Why is the department pushing it through so quickly – and what will it do when the analysis is done?

In an article on the GovExec.com website, Chris Strohm says when the analysis is finished, the DHS intends to deploy 50 new intrusion detection systems to those agencies. The reason for the rush? The DHS is concerned that network security is becoming an even greater issue.

“We’re concerned that the intrusions are more frequent and they're more targeted and they're more sophisticated,” Robert Jamison, undersecretary for the department’s national protection and programs directorate, told Strohm.

While most of the initiative is classified, Strohm says Homeland Security is responsible for defending networks across the federal government or those that fall within the .gov domain. On Friday, Jamison said his department is mapping where Internet access points exist across the .gov domain and which federal agencies are most at risk of attacks.

“Over the next 30 to 45 days we hope to have a much more comprehensive picture of exactly which agencies are going to get the initial deployments,” Jamison told Strohm.

Jamison also said one of the biggest challenges for the government is determining real attacks from nuisance activity. He declined, however, to discuss which foreign governments might be attacking US government networks.