“The Veterans Affairs Department’s cybersecurity has been deemed a material weakness longer than the Federal Information Security Management Act and its predecessor the Government Information Security Reform Act (GISRA) have been in existence.”
“And for the 19th straight year, VA’s inspector general determined the agency’s progress was not enough to bring it off the bad list.”
“But Dominic Cussatt, VA’s chief information security officer, and former VA acting CIO Scott Blackburn say 2018 may be their year that its FISMA audit finds no material weaknesses.”
“It’s a testament to the work VA has done since we published our 2015 cybersecurity strategy and established our Enterprise Cybersecurity Team, which executed against an integrated master schedule of over 3,000 line items to deliver over 35 different plans of actions to support cybersecurity activities and noted deficiencies… What you will see in that strategy is a lot more work in terms of institutionalizing these foundational capabilities into the culture and into the bedrock that is under all of our IT systems and these innovative technologies that we are building. So 2018 will be a very busy year trying to take advantage of everything …”
“Contractors have 60 days to get this in order to keep working for the government…” Read the full article here.
Source: VA must show sustained progress with cybersecurity for auditors to give their seal of approval – By Jason Miller, April 20, 2018. Federal News Radio.
