As George Russell from Fox News tells us:
State Department agency deemed 'critical' to information security is a mess, report shows.
Well that comes as a big surprise
I suggest that there is little if any "Critical information found in the State Department as evidenced by the most recent testimony given by former Secretary of State, after she got a boo-boo and developed amnesia before she testified on Benghazi.
One is left to ponder, if then Secretary of State Clinton was proved to have perjured herself, will anything be done about it? Or will she end up where she belongs?
Gee the administration has done what in bringing people to justice?
By George Russell
FoxNews.com
An obscure little State Department agency whose work is called "critical to the Department's information security posture" has been in a shambles for years, and is still in chaos, according to an audit report by the department's inspector general released yesterday.
As one result of all the bumbling and inaction, the security checks that the agency is supposed to perform and subsequent approvals for use that it is supposed to bestow every three years on 36 of those State Department systems have lapsed entirely, meaning that they are operating, in effect, illegally.
Some of the lapses have gone on for two years; in at least a couple of cases involving information systems that the audit calls "primary general support systems," the lapses have gone on since 2007.
One of the systems that is operating without a current license, known as iPost, was given an award two years ago for "significantly improving the effectiveness of the nation's cyber security." According to the inspector general's report, auditors couldn't find any documentation to back up how the award-winning system was created or maintained, nor any source code for the information it was supposed to track.
There is more -- much more -- concerning the 22-person agency, known as the Office of Information Assurance of the State Department's Bureau of Information Resource Management (IRM/IA), which among other things certifies the security status of more than 170 information systems in the State Department.
The report comes at a time of heightened concern about both cyber-security and torrents of information leaks in the U.S. government.
According to the audit report, the agency has statutory responsibility as State's "lead office for information assurance and security." Its top official, currently William Lay, is known as State's Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), who reports up to State's Chief Information Officer, currently Steven C. Taylor.
Despite the agency's august legal status, IRM/IA's staff apparently has no sense of what security functions their unit is actually required to perform, has failed for years to update information security manuals used by thousands of other State Department personnel, and has often left important details about the vulnerability of State's information systems where they can be accessed by people with lower-level security classifications.
CLICK HERE FOR THE AUDIT
The State Department said in a statement that it was taking the report's findings seriously.
Entire article below.
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