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Treasury computers said vulnerable
‘Billions at risk,’ says General Accounting Office
By Bob Sullivan
MSNBC
Feb. 5 — Government computers that keep track of trillions of dollars as they flow in
an out of Washington D.C. remain vulnerable to computer hackers, according to a report
released by Congress’ General Accounting Office. The report says that Treasury
Department computer systems — which handle everything from Social Security checks to
$2 trillion in tax and duty fee collections annually — are rife with security
problems. Many of the vulnerabilities haven’t been fixed since the GAO first pointed
out the flaws in 1999.
THE GAO FOUND usernames and passwords were easy to guess in some cases, and
that some employees had far-ranging access to systems that reached beyond their job
duties. Dial-in access to some networks and mainframe computers were not properly
monitored. And some security reports were not being followed up on, the GAO said.
“Billions of dollars of payments and collections are at significant risk of
loss or fraud, sensitive data are at risk of inappropriate disclosure, and critical
computer-based operations are vulnerable to serious disruptions,” the report concluded.
The report was sent to the Treasury Department in December; an excerpted
version was made available to the public on Monday.
In a letter of response the the critical report, Treasury Department
commission Richard L. Gregg admitted there were problems, but said his agency had made
“significant progress” in its efforts to secure government computers. He also said the
General Accounting Office report was based on data that was a year old.
“Although there is always room for improvement, I believe that we have not
compromised the public trust in carrying out our payments, collections, and
government-wide accounting responsibilities,” Gregg wrote.
Still, the General Accounting Office report was at times scathing in its
assessment of critical Treasury Department systems.
”(The) overall security control environment continues to be ineffective in
identifying, deterring, and responding to computer control weaknesses promptly,” the
report said. “In addition to new weaknesses, we found the (the Treasury Department)
still needed to act on approximately 42 percent of the weaknesses discussed in our
1999 report.”
http://www.msnbc.com/news/700186.asp?0na=x2306260-
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