The US Department of Homeland Security's wide area
network (Wan) is plagued by security problems, according to a
government watchdog.
The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found that the DHS’
Wan had 65 million security event messages between February and
April 2005.
The number of security event messages represented a 400%
increase from the year before, said the OIG.
Ten per cent, or 6.5 million, of the warnings were related to
network alerts over the viewing of pornography on networked
computers, although the DHS pointed out some of these incidents
could have been linked to the department’s work in fighting illegal
porn.
The OIG said the DHS’s network monitoring system could not
confirm whether this was entirely the case.
The OIG said the DHS had failed to clearly outline baseline
security controls or rules of use, to prevent unauthorised Wan
transactions. Without such controls, the DHS cannot remove
problematic users from the network, said the OIG.
The DHS said it was addressing the OIG’s concerns.