The Cybersecurity Sprint: Are we safe yet?

August 7, 2015 / G C Network / Comments Off on The Cybersecurity Sprint: Are we safe yet?

VMware lays out roadmap to the clouds.

By G C Network | June 10, 2008

Earlier this year, Diane Greene, VMware President and Co-Founder, described cloud computing as the final evolutionary step for virtualization. Reza Malekzadeh, Senior Director of Products and Marketing reinforced that view…

Mario Dal Canto at Virtualization Conference & Expo 2008 East

By G C Network | June 9, 2008

According to Mario Dal Canto, “Virtual Cloud Computing represents the next wave of virtualization and offers significant market opportunities by providing a new, simpler, and much more pervasive platform for…

Microsoft cloud fits and starts.

By G C Network | June 9, 2008

Microsoft’s dance with cloud comuting is very puzzling. Point 1: The June 5th Wall Street Journal article discusses the friction between Steve Ballmer and Bill Gagtes over NetDocs, described by…

Salesforce.com & Google

By G C Network | June 6, 2008

A short promotional video on Salesforce and the Google cloud. Follow me at https://Twitter.com/Kevin_Jackson

Gamers now have their own cloud.

By G C Network | June 5, 2008

Valve, a Bellevue, Washington based entertainment software and technology company, recently announced that they will use the cloud computing paradigm as their next major update. Called “Steam Cloud” the service…

Is IBM serious about cloud computing?

By G C Network | June 5, 2008

Last week in Eye on the Enterprise, Joe McKendrick, highlighted IBM VP Steve Mills’ apparently less than enthusiastic statement regarding cloud computing. In an April 30th interview with CNET’s Dan…

VMware and Cloud Computing

By G C Network | June 3, 2008

VMware President and Chief Executive Officer Diane Greene,in her keynote address at the JP Morgan Technology Conference in Boston, described cloud computing as the final evolutionary step for virtualization. In…

DISA Cloud Computing Plans

By G C Network | June 3, 2008

During last month’s Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Partnership Conference, cloud computing debuted as a “top priority” for senior leadership. Speakers described a future state when users would access computing…

The Cloud Computing Portal

By G C Network | May 30, 2008

The Cloud Computing Portal is a community edited database that makes the cloud vendor selection process easier, by helping you find a cloud provider who supports the environment you need.…

HP in the Cloud

By G C Network | May 29, 2008

In “HP weds cloud…” , Hewlett-Packard has apparently outlined their approach to cloud computing. They are merging their high-performance computing unit with the Web 2.0 and cloud computing infrastructure businesses.…



UPDATE: NBC News reports U.S. officials have disclosed a hack of the Pentagon’s Joint Staff unclassified email system, which took place on July 25.

Recent unauthorized access to a U.S. government database led to thecompromise of information on at least 21.5 million individuals. This massive background investigation data breach also compromised usernames, passwords, mental health records and financial information. Although a security update applied by the Office of Management and Budget (OPM) and the Homeland Security Department (DHS) in January ended the bulk of the data extraction, the U.S. government-wide remediation efforts were extended by launching a 30-day Cybersecurity Sprint.

This action was done to assess and improve the health of all federal assets and networks. Agencies were instructed to immediately patch critical vulnerabilities, review and tightly limit the number of privileged users with access to authorized systems and dramatically accelerate the use of strong authentication, especially for privileged users.

Last month, federal CIO Tony Scott reported significant progress with the sprint citing significant progress that included:

  • A Federal Civilian agency increase in the use of strong authentication for privileged and unprivileged users from 42 percent to 72 percent
  • An increase in the use of strong authentication for privileged users from 33 percent to nearly 75 percent
  • The implementation of strong authentication across 95 percent of privileged users working in thirteen agencies, or more than half of the largest agencies – including the Departments of Transportation, Veterans Affairs, and the Interior Department



Although I applaud these recent efforts the Federal government has a very long way to go before anything like “Mission Accomplished” can be claimed.

One major and costly challenge will be in the area of software development. A recent analysis, State of Software Security by Veracode, that rated application security by using compliance with Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) top 10 vulnerabilities recommendations as a yardstick found a “low pass rate” in government applications. This dismal finding was theorized as being the result of a:

  • Higher use of scripting languages
  • More prevalent use of older languages which are known to produce more vulnerabilities
  • Low rate of software remediation (e.g. fixing flaws)
The four most important vulnerability categories listed by the study are SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), cryptography issues and command injection. This is due to the pervasiveness and severity of these vulnerabilities, specifically:

  • SQL injection was the application vulnerability most often exploited in web application attacks in a recent 2015 data breach Incident
  • Cross-site scripting is overall far more prevalent than any other category
  • OS command injection played a role in 2014’s Shellshock vulnerability, in which a commonly used open source component was exploited in a way that allowed taking over a server to run arbitrary code
Government developed software has performed poorly by having the highest prevalence of both SQL injection and cross-site scripting when compared to other industry rates.

To improve on the current sad state of government cybersecurity, the Federal Information Security Management Reform Act (FISMA Reform), has been proposed as a new bill. This legislations offers five major initiatives designed to improve the overall security posture of federal networks:

  • Grant DHS authority to operate intrusion detection and prevention software across the .gov domain
  • Authorize DHS to conduct regular risk assessments on federal networks
  • Require DHS to enact defensive countermeasures in the event an intrusion is detected
  • Strengthen and streamline authority Congress gave to DHS last year to issue binding operational directives to federal agencies, especially to respond to substantial cybersecurity threats in emergency situations
  • Mandate annual OMB reports on enforcement of government wide cybersecurity standards
As citizens we all place a significant amount of trust in our government’s ability to defend and protect society and our way of life. In the modern world this trust extends into our cyber life as well. Although individuals still need to take more responsibility for how they manage and protect their own information, our government needs to look at how they are managing our data and protecting information. National security needs to be a priority to all. 
FY 2015 Q2 (4/15) vs. Cybersecurity Sprint Results (7/29)
(https://www.performance.gov/node/3401/view?view=public#progress-update)

( This post was written as part of the Dell Insight Partners program, which provides news and analysis about the evolving world of tech. For more on these topics, visit Dell’s thought leadership site Power More. Dell sponsored this article, but the opinions are my own and don’t necessarily represent Dell’s positions or strategies.)

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