In GAO's survey of 24 federal agencies, the 18 agencies having high-impact systems identified cyber attacks from "nations" as the most serious and most frequently-occurring threat to the security of their systems. These agencies also noted that attacks delivered through e-mail were the most serious and frequent. During fiscal year 2014, 11 of the 18 agencies reported 2,267 incidents affecting the

In March 2016 GAO reported that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) had instituted numerous controls over key financial and tax processing systems; however, it had not always effectively implemented safeguards intended to properly restrict access to systems and information. In particular, while IRS had improved some of its access controls, weaknesses remained with identifying and authenticating us

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) made progress in implementing information security controls; however, weaknesses in the controls limited their effectiveness in protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of financial and sensitive taxpayer data. During fiscal year 2015, IRS continued to devote attention to securing its information systems that process sensitive taxpayer and fin

The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) National Cybersecurity Protection System (NCPS) is partially, but not fully, meeting its stated system objectives: (1) <b>Intrusion detection:</b> NCPS provides DHS with a limited ability to detect potentially malicious activity entering and exiting computer networks at federal agencies. Specifically, NCPS compares network traffic to known patterns of m

Federal systems face an evolving array of cyber-based threats. These threats can be unintentional--for example, from software coding errors or the actions of careless or poorly trained employees; or intentional--targeted or untargeted attacks from criminals, hackers, adversarial nations, terrorists, disgruntled employees or other organizational insiders, among others. These concerns are further h

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) made progress in implementing information security controls; however, weaknesses limit their effectiveness in protecting the confidentiality, integrity and availability of financial and sensitive taxpayer data. During fiscal year 2014, IRS continued to devote attention to securing its information systems that process sensitive taxpayer and financial information.

Enrollment through Healthcare.gov is supported by the exchange of information among many systems and entities. The Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has overall responsibility for key information technology (IT) systems supporting Healthcare.gov. These include, among others, the Federally Facilitated Marketplace (FFM) system, which facil

Although the six federal agencies that GAO reviewed (the Departments of Energy (DOE), Homeland Security (DHS), State, and Transportation (DOT), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM)) generally established security and privacy requirements and planned for assessments to determine the effectiveness of contractor implementation of controls, five of th

The threats to systems supporting critical infrastructures are evolving and growing. In a February 2011 testimony, the Director of National Intelligence noted that there has been a dramatic increase in cyber activity targeting U.S. computers and systems in the last year, including a more than tripling of the volume of malicious software since 2009. Varying types of threats from numerous sources c

Cyber-based threats to federal systems and critical infrastructure are evolving and growing. These threats can come from a variety of sources, including criminals and foreign nations, as well as hackers and disgruntled employees. These potential attackers have a variety of techniques at their disposal, which can vastly enhance the reach and impact of their actions. For example, cyber attackers do