The latest publication in a long line of reports drawing attention to the State Department’s failure to secure its information technology-dependent systems from cyberattacks reflects a general mismanagement of resources.
“Notwithstanding the expenditure of substantial resources by the Department,” reads a report State’s Office of the Inspector General released Wednesday, “the OIG continues to identify significant issues that put its information at risk.”
The report follows a Jan. 14 letter Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., sent to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asking what steps he’s taken to address the shortcomings detailed in previous IG reports. Warner put the letter in the context of a “long history of information breaches” at State and recent tensions with Iran.
The senator specifically noted an August OIG report that called attention to the absence of “two senior executive service positions responsible for cybersecurity” due to a hiring freeze, and a 2017 OIG report that stated the chief information officer was “not well placed to be held accountable for State Department Cybersecurity issues.”
The report out Wednesday reiterated the 2017 findings, noting “lapses in the performance of duties by Information Systems Security Officers persisted in FY 2019” and pointed to overseas posts where problems were more extensive.
In the Office of Foreign Missions, for example, “the lack of a fully implemented systems development lifecycle methodology” meant staff there was using a system that hadn’t been authorized for operation since 2013, the report said.
The report, which was a statement on the department’s “Major Management and Performance Challenges,” referenced the OIG’s 2019 Federal Informatio ..
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