With many eyes inside and outside of government trained on cybersecurity, two senators recently questioned whether the White House has paid enough attention to safeguarding the nation’s digital security.
Sens. John Thune, chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and Ron Johnson, chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, sent a letter to Pres. Barack Obama and cited reports indicating that the Executive Office of the President has not submitted annual security reviews to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in three years.
“Recent reports that the Office of Personnel Management suffered multiple significant intrusions, resulting in the exposure of millions of employees’ personal information, only underscore the importance for every federal agency, including the EOP, to take steps to improve its cybersecurity posture,” the senators wrote.
The senators also cited “recent reports of a malicious cyber intrusion into the White House computer system” that raise concerns. Federal agencies are required by the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 to report on their information security practices annually.
Erin is the managing editor of Advisen’s Front Page News. She has been covering property-casualty insurance since 2000. Previously, Erin served as editor-in-chief of The Standard, New England’s Insurance Weekly. Erin is based in Boston, Mass. Contact Erin at [email protected].
