IT security LOB strives for standards, consistency among agencies
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To achieve the Office of Management and Budget's goal of certifying and accrediting at least 90 percent of all federal systems, agencies likely will have to wait until the IT security Line of Business consolidation effort kicks into high gear.
HERSHEY, Pa.'To achieve the Office of Management and Budget's goal of certifying and accrediting at least 90 percent of all federal systems, agencies likely will have to wait until the IT security Line of Business consolidation effort kicks into high gear.
After three years of trying to reach the high-water mark, agencies still have not topped 85 percent, according to Glen Schlarman, chief of the information policy and technology branch at OMB.
'We are driving to 90 percent, but it is difficult to crack,' Schlarman said at the 2005 Executive Leadership Conference co-sponsored by the Industry Advisory Council and the American Council for Technology. 'It is difficult to get that last 10 percent because system inventories change and agencies have such geographically diverse infrastructures.'
Schlarman said that IT security improved over the past few years but progress has leveled off, and OMB expects the IT Line of Business effort to implement standards and consistency in four main areas, which will advance cybersecurity further.
'Maybe we collected all the low-hanging fruit,' Schlarman said. 'To get to the next level, we have to improve the quality of our reporting and that is what the Line of Business will do. It will improve everyone's performance because the baseline will be applied consistently across government.'
The IT security LOB would focus on four areas:
- Security training, to standardize security processes, develop common criteria and help provide a career path for information security professionals in government
- FISMA reporting, to standardize reporting processes and help ensure consistent and effective IT program management
- Situational awareness and incident response, to improve the sharing of information about IT vulnerabilities and threats and provide resources for responding to security incidents and
- Lifecycle security solutions, to provide a common methodology for evaluating security tools so each agency does not have to go through the process from scratch each time it acquires security products or services.
proposed
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