http://fcw.com/articles/2009/04/06/web-irs-security-settings.aspx By Mary Mosquera FCW.com April 06, 2009 The Internal Revenue Service has been slow to implement the required security settings on its 98,000 desktop and laptop computers, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said. The IRS implemented 102 of the 254 required security settings on its computers in October 2008, nine months after the deadline set by the Office of Management and Budget, TIGTA said in a report released today. OMB required agencies that use Microsoft’s Windows XP or VISTA operating systems to adopt the Federal Desktop Core Configuration (FDCC), a standard set of configuration settings, by Feb. 1, 2008, to improve security and reduce operating costs. As of December 2008, the IRS had implemented 81 percent of the settings, the auditor said. The service has faced difficulties in establishing the security settings because the tax agency’s 98,000 computers are in 670 locations, and the IRS operates 1,900 software applications, 300 of which were internally developed for specific IRS business processes, the report states. As part of the implementation effort, the IRS must test each application to ensure it operates properly with the FDCC settings, TIGTA said. The creation of a project team to manage the security effort in January 2008, one week before the deadline, slowed implementation of the settings, TIGTA said. The untimely creation of the project team occurred because some IRS officials mistakenly assumed the IRS’ current common operating environment met the FDCC requirements, according to the report. [...] _______________________________________________ Best Selling Security Books and More! http://www.shopinfosecnews.org/Received on Tue Apr 07 2009 - 01:25:33 PDT
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