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CYBER INSECURITY: HACKERS 

ARE PENETRATING FEDERAL SYSTEMS 

AND CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING 

THREATS, CYBERSECURITY AND 

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

APRIL 19, 2007 

Serial No. 110–26 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html 


Congress.#13
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY 

BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi, Chairman 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California, 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts 

NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington 

JANE HARMAN, California 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

NITA M. LOWEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, U.S. Virgin 

Islands 

BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

HENRY CUELLAR, Texas 

CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania 

YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York 

AL GREEN, Texas 

ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado 

------ 

PETER T. KING, New York 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas 

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut 

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana 

TOM DAVIS, Virginia 

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

BOBBY JINDAL, Louisiana 

DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania 

GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida 

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee 

GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida 

DAVID DAVIS, Tennessee 

JESSICA HERRERA-FLANIGAN, Staff Director & General Counsel 

ROSALINE COHEN, Chief Counsel 

MICHAEL TWINCHEK, Chief Clerk 

ROBERT O’CONNOR, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS, CYBERSECURITY, AND 

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island, Chairman 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, U.S. Virgin 

Islands 

BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina 

AL GREEN, Texas 

VACANCY 

BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi (Ex 

Officio) 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California 

GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida 

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee 

PETER T. KING, New York (Ex Officio) 

JACOB OLCOTT, Director & Counsel 

DR. CHRIS BECK, Senior Advisor for Science & Technology 

CARLA ZAMUDIO-DOLAN, Clerk 

DR. DIANE BERRY, Minority Senior Professional Staff Member 

(II) 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

STATEMENTS 

The Honorable James R. Langevin, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Rhode Island, Chairman, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, 

Cybersecurity, and Science, and Technology ..................................................... 1 

The Honorable Michael T. McCaul, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Texas, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, 

Cybersecurity, and Science, and Technology ..................................................... 3 

The Honorable Bob Etheridge, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of North Carolina ................................................................................................. 33 

The Honorable Al Green, a Representative in Congress From the State of 

Texas ..................................................................................................................... 36 

The Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of California .......................................................................................................... 4 

The Honorable Daniel E. Lungren, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of California ................................................................................................ 42 

WITNESSES

PANEL I 

Mr. Jerry Dixon, Director, National Cyber Security, Division, U.S. 

Department of Homeland Security: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 24 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 26 

Mr. Dave Jarrell, Manager, Critical Infrastructure Protection Program, U.S. 

Department of Commerce: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 16 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 18 

Mr. Donald Reid, Senior Coordinator for Security Infrastructure, Bureau of 

Diplomatic security, U.S. Department of State: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 13 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 15 

Mr. Greg Wilshusen, Director, Information Security Issues, Government 

Accountability Office: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 6 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 8 

Accompanied by: ......................................................................................................

Mr. David Powner, Director, Information Technology, Government 

Accounting Office .............................................................................................. 40 

PANEL II 

Mr. Ken Silva, Chief Security Officer, VeriSign: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 51 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 53 

Mr. Aaron Turner, Cybersecurity Strategist, National & Homeland Security, 

Idaho National Laboratory: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 45 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 47 

Page

IV 

APPENDIXES

Appendix A: Prepared Opening Statements 

The Hon. James R. Langevin .............................................................................. 63 

The Hon. Bennie G. Thompson ........................................................................... 64 

Appendix B: Additional Questions and Responses 

Responses from Mr. Jerry Dixon ........................................................................ 64 

(1) 

CYBER INSECURITY: HACKERS ARE 

PENETRATING FEDERAL SYSTEMS AND 

CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE 

Thursday, April 19, 2007 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS, CYBERSECURITY, 

AND SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 

Washington, DC. 

the subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:11 p.m., in Room 

1539, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. James Langevin 

[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Langevin, Lofgren, Etheridge, Green, 

Mccall, and Lungren. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. [Presiding.] The subcommittee will come to order. 

The subcommittee is meeting today to receive testimony on 

‘‘Cyber Insecurity: Hackers are Penetrating Federal Systems and 

Critical Infrastructure.’’ 

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Subcommittee on Emerging 

Threats, Cybersecurity, Science and Technology hearing on the 

hacking of federal systems and privately owned critical infrastructure. 

I would like to begin by thanking the witnesses who appear before us today, and I appreciate your testimony today that we are 

about to hear. 

I will focus my remarks this afternoon on our first panel, which 

will discuss the security of information technology on the federal 

level. 

Let me be clear about the threat to our federal systems: I believe 

the infiltration by foreign nationals of federal government networks 

is one of the most critical issues confronting our nation. The acquisition of our government’s information by outsiders undermines our 

strength as a nation. If sensitive information is stolen and absorbed by our enemies, we are strategically harmed. 

Over time, the theft of critical information from government servers could cost the United States our advantage over our adversaries. This is a most critical issue that we cannot afford to ignore 

any longer. Today we are hearing from several agencies that have 

experienced significant cyber attacks against their systems. These 

are not the only agencies experiencing problems. They are simply 

the only attacks that have been made public to this point. 

In October 2006, hackers operating through Chinese Internet 

servers launched an attack on the computer system of the Bureau 

2 

of Industry and Security, BIS, at the Department of Commerce. 

The hackers penetrated the computers with a ‘‘rootkit’’ program, a 

form of software that allows attackers to mask their presence and 

then gain privileged access to the system. 

In reviewing the Commerce testimony for today’s hearing, I am 

troubled by several things. Though Commerce first learned on July 

13 that its computers were infected, this was not the date of initial 

infection. In fact, Commerce has no idea how long the attackers 

were actually inside their systems, nor do they know if the 

attackers are still within their systems. 

As far as I can tell from the responses, rogue tunnel audits, authentication changes, and complete machine rebuilds have not occurred. We are also not sure how much information was lost. 

Though Commerce tells us that data was not lost, data can easily 

be copied and sent outside through the Internet. So there is a difference here, and I want to make that distinction, between lost and 

information that is copied by those who have penetrated the system. 

Unfortunately, Commerce isn’t the only federal agency with a 

problem. Prior to the Commerce hack, in June 2006, hackers 

accessed networks at several State Department locations, including 

its Washington headquarters, and inside the Bureau of East Asian 

and Pacific Affairs. They did so by sending a socially engineered 

email to an employee. The employee opened the Microsoft Word 

document attachment, which contained an exploit code. 

I am concerned about the temporary fix that State put in place. 

Security authorities that I have spoken with are highly dubious 

about the success of ‘‘temporary wrappers,’’ as they are called, the 

kind which State had to put in place due to the absence of a Microsoft patch for several months. Most targeted attacks involve 

rootkits, which cannot be detected or stopped by a temporary wrapper. I don’t understand, therefore, why State wouldn’t take its entire system offline for a full kernel inspection. 

In reading State’s testimony, I believe they made the determination that accessibility to data is more important than confidentiality and integrity. If State really valued the latter, they would 

have taken the system offline and done a full wash. Both agencies 

insist that these attacks are less serious because they involve unclassified servers. I disagree. 

As you are no doubt aware, FISMA requires federal agencies to 

track down and identify every device and system on an agency’s 

network, and to make sure that the network topology is fully described. As we learned last week, both State and Commerce received F’s in the latest round of FISMA scores. 

According to page 10 of the fiscal year 2006 FISMA report to 

Congress, the inspector general at State reported that the agency 

did not complete at least 50 percent of its system inventory. The 

I.G. at Commerce certifies that at least 96 percent of Commerce 

systems have been inventoried. 

I will suggest to our panelists today that if they can’t certify 

their network topologies to FISMA, then they can’t know for certain that these incidents don’t involve the classified networks. Furthermore, just because attacks are occurring on the unclassified 

network does not mean this isn’t sensitive information. Information 

3 

that may be deemed classified in the future may first appear in an 

unclassified network. 

But this isn’t just about Commerce and State. I have to say that 

I am disappointed and troubled with the Department of Homeland 

Security’s progress in securing cyberspace. The department is the 

agency responsible for securing the nation’s critical infrastructure, 

and yet they received a D this year on its FISMA score. It is the 

first time since 2003 that the department did not receive an F, so 

I guess we are making some progress. 

Our issue today is with the NCSD, but I will be honest with you: 

I don’t know how the department thinks it is going to lead this nation in securing cyberspace when it can’t even secure its own networks. Not only are these grades embarrassing, but they are dangerous. Think about all of the critical information the department 

is keeping on its networks. I can assure everyone here that the 

kinds of questions that have been asked to the State Department 

and the Commerce Department will be asked of DHS as well. 

With regard to NCSD’s response to these incidents, I have a few 

thoughts. It is my understanding that NCSD does not adequately 

share commonalities of attack information with other agencies that 

may be at risk. For instance, an agency like Commerce or State 

that has been hacked by a ‘‘zero-day exploit’’ will provide this information to the NCSD. But the NCSD can’t just sit on that information. We need the NCSD to be the group that fuses information 

from across the federal government together and distributes the 

product for agencies to use across government. 

Unfortunately, I understand that NCSD does not have protocols 

in place to share this kind of information with other agencies in the 

federal government or perform that level of work. This subcommittee will continue to monitor these issues to ensure that information sharing and technical response improves. 

In closing, I think these incidents have opened a lot of eyes in 

the halls of Congress. We don’t know the scope of our networks. We 

don’t know who is inside our networks. We don’t know what information has been stolen. We need to get serious about this threat 

to our national security. 

That is the end of my statement. 

The chair now recognizes the ranking member of the subcommittee, the gentleman from Texas, for an opening statement. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank you for holding this hearing. It is a very, very 

important issue. It is an issue that, in my view, is overlooked many 

times. It poses a very significant threat to this nation. In my judgment, it can cause far greater destruction than, say, a dirty bomb 

which we tend to focus on quite a bit, if you think about the networks, the cyber systems, the power grids being shut down in this 

nation. 

We know that our own military has tremendous capability and 

capacity to do these things. Imagine that capability in the hands 

of a rogue nation or a terrorist state, and what havoc they could 

wreak upon this country. There is espionage hacking, stealing intellectual property, and then there is a potential terrorist attack. 

These are all threats I take very seriously as a great threat to this 

nation. 

4 

Again, I want to thank you for holding this hearing on the 

vulnerabilities of both government and private computer systems. 

They are networks that are vulnerable to malicious hacking. I 

agree the issue of cyber security has matured past the point of 

talking about it in generalities and sweeping policy statements and 

rhetoric. Now is the time to start focusing on specific issues such 

as hacking into government networks. 

As everyone is aware, we depend on information technology 

every day. We are aware of some of the more widely known problems that face our computer networks, from spam and viruses to 

online attempts at identity theft. These problems cause us to waste 

resources and time, but to a large extent they do not pose a security threat. But hacking into computer networks, especially government computer networks, does create a very real security threat, 

specifically a threat to our ability to rely upon information that we 

have in those networks. 

Our country and our government depend on information. If that 

information becomes untrustworthy because it is on a vulnerable 

computer network, governmental services and institutions could 

grind to a halt. Some say that as long as classified network remain 

protected, that national security will be preserved. Unfortunately, 

national security depends on more than just classified information. 

For example, if Medicare records are compromised, the wellbeing of a large portion of our citizens would be at risk. In a similar way, if computers at the IRS were compromised, the resulting 

unreliability of tax records could create an administrative nightmare for many Americans. In addition, there are industrial control 

systems that if compromised could have a very direct and dangerous result. 

Control systems are those that control facilities and processes in 

multiple industries across the country, such as dam spillways and 

electric power systems. Gaining control of these systems could create as much damage as a weapon of mass destruction. 

I look forward to working with you, Mr. Chairman, to take a 

more comprehensive look at the threats against control systems 

and the viability of securing these critical infrastructure systems. 

While this hearing is focused on the issue of hacking into computer 

networks, I hope that we can also clarify the role and responsibility 

of the Department of Homeland Security regarding these issues. 

Should the department be responsible for securing all of the government’s computer networks? Or should it be merely a point of coordination for departmental computer security offices? I believe the 

department should be the point of leadership for cybersecurity 

throughout the country and lead by example, by making its networks the most secure and reliable in the country. 

The department already has programs to monitor the traffic on 

some government networks. I look forward to a better description 

of them by Mr. Dixon. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. I thank the gentleman. 

I ask unanimous consent that the gentlelady from California, Ms. 

Lofgren, be recognized for the purpose of an opening statement. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I will be 

brief, as I have a conflict in about 20 minutes. 

5 

I will just first thank you for holding this hearing. I think it is 

very important and that we begin to pay attention once again to 

the cybersecurity issues that I think have been neglected for the 

last couple of years. 

I have constituents here in the next panel, VeriSign. I wanted to 

welcome them to the capitol and for their statement—I have read 

all the statements—and to note whether this could be addressed by 

the witnesses. In the VeriSign statement—there is no page numbers on it—but describing Project Titan. There is a discussion of 

the concern about a cyber attack coupled with a physical attack, 

which is something that has been of great concern to me over the 

years. 

I am interested in exploring that, either in this hearing, or if 

more appropriate, in a more discrete setting, but I think that is 

something that we need to pay some considerable attention to. I 

also note that the current system which provides letter grades 

seems to have no connection whatsoever to the actual security of 

the agency. That is something that I hope that we can visit. 

So that we will not delay the testimony, I would just simply 

thank the chairman for taking me out of order and allowing me to 

make those comments. I yield back. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. I thank the gentlelady. 

Other members of the subcommittee are reminded that under the 

committee rules, opening statements may be submitted for the 

record. 

I now welcome our first panel of witnesses. 

Our first witness is Mr. Gregory Wilshusen, who is the director 

of information security issues at GAO, where he leads information 

security-related issues and audits of the federal government. He 

has over 26 years of auditing, financial management and information systems experience. He is a certified public accountant, certified internal auditor, and certified information systems auditor. 

He holds a B.S. degree in business administration and accounting 

from the University of Missouri, and an M.S. in information management from George Washington University School of Engineering 

and Applied Sciences. 

Thank you for being here. 

Our second witness is Mr. Don Reid, the senior coordinator for 

security infrastructure, Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Mr. Reid 

oversees the department’s information and personnel security suitability programs, and key aspects of its network cybersecurity program. Mr. Reid’s information security responsibilities include the 

management of classified information programs, oversight of the 

department’s Special Security Office, the operation of the Industrial Security Program, and the investigation and resolution of security violations. 

Mr. Reid served in the United States Air Force for 30 years. He 

earned an undergraduate degree in criminology from the University of Maryland, his master’s degree in Middle East studies from 

the University of Utah, and completed a senior managers in government seminar at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. 

Our third witness is Mr. Dave Jarrell, the critical infrastructure 

protection manager at the Department of Commerce. He has focused his 27-year career as a security professional, where his focus 

6 

remains on critical infrastructure protection, contingency of operations planning, crisis and disaster recovery, I.T. education for federal agency staff, and I.T. security incident response and readiness. 

His first detail while in the United States Marine Corps was the 

protection of the president while traveling aboard Air Force One. 

It was while assigned to HMX–One Marine Helicopter Squadron 

that David received a medal for saving the life of an infant child. 

In his free time, Mr. Jarrell volunteers as a firefighter emergency 

medical technician and fire incident and command officer, where 

his most senior assignment was that of fire captain. 

Thank you for being here. 

Our final witness is Mr. Jerry Dixon, the director of the National 

Cyber Security Division of the Department of Homeland Security. 

Mr. Dixon leads the national effort to protect America’s cyber infrastructure and identify cyber threats. He works collaboratively and 

facilitates strategic partnerships with stakeholders in the private 

sector, private industry and international arena. Mr. Dixon was appointed director of the NCSD on January 7, 2007. 

Before joining NCSD, Mr. Dixon was the founding director of the 

Internal Revenue Service’s computer security instant response capability. In this role, Mr. Dixon led the operational cybersecurity 

capability for the IRS and developed their ability to detect and respond to protect American taxpayers’ private information from security attacks. Mr. Dixon has also served as director of information 

security for Marriott International, a private-sector company where 

he led cybersecurity planning, security architecture, and security 

operations. 

Gentlemen, again I want to thank you for being here. 

Without objection, the witnesses’ full statements will be inserted 

in the record. 

I will now ask each witness to summarize their statement for 5 

minutes, beginning with Mr. Wilshusen. 

Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF GREG WILSHUSEN, DIRECTOR, INFORMATION 

SECURITY ISSUES, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Mr. WILSHUSEN. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify at today’s hearing 

on information security over federal systems. I am joined by David 

Powner, director of information technology at GAO. 

For many years, GAO has reported weaknesses in information 

security, a widespread problem with potentially devastating consequences such as intrusions by malicious users, compromised networks, and the theft of personally identifiable information. In reports to the Congress since 1997, GAO has identified information 

security as a government-wide high-risk issue. 

Today, I will discuss the weaknesses that persist in information 

security controls at federal agencies, the reporting of security incidents, and the efforts by the Department of Homeland Security to 

develop a cyber-threat analysis and warning capability. 

Mr. Chairman, serious information security weaknesses continue 

to threaten the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of federal 

systems and information. Twenty-one of the 24 major agencies 

7 

were cited by their inspectors general or independent auditors for 

significant weaknesses in information systems control. 

For example, 18 agencies do not have adequate access controls in 

place to ensure that only authorized individuals could access, view 

or manipulate data. Even basic controls were not consistently implemented. For example, well-known vendor supply passwords 

were not replaced. Users were granted access privileges that exceeded their need. Sensitive information was not always encrypted, 

and adequate audit logs were not always maintained. 

Agencies also lacked effective physical security controls. For instance, many of the data losses that occurred at federal agencies 

over the past few years were a result of either physical thefts or 

improper safeguarding of laptops and other portable devices. An 

underlying cause for these reasons is that agencies have not fully 

implemented information security programs required by the Federal Information Security Management Act, or FISMA. 

These weaknesses persist even as many agencies report increased implementation of program activities. However, until agencies effectively and fully implement these programs, federal data 

systems will not be sufficiently safeguarded to prevent unauthorized use, disclosure and modification. 

In 2006, agencies reported a record number of security incidents 

to the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team, or 

US–CERT, which is a unit within the Department of Homeland Security responsible for collecting such information. Although agencies have noted improvements in incident reporting procedures, inconsistencies exist across agencies. 

For example, although one agency reported more than 800 incidents annually internally to law enforcement authorities, it did not 

report them to US–CERT. I.G.s have also reported weaknesses in 

agencies’ incident reporting procedures. 

In addition to its activities with US–CERT, the Department of 

Homeland Security has taken steps towards addressing our recommendations for developing a strategic analysis and warning capability for cyber attacks. It has established various initiatives to 

enhance analytical capabilities such as promoting intelligence sharing through the US–CERT, and deploying situational awareness 

tools at selected federal agencies. 

We believe that with a robust, effective and strategic analysis or 

warning capability, the department can help agencies to reduce 

risks associated with security incidents. However, it has not yet 

fully implemented our recommendations, particularly in implementing such a capability beyond the federal government. 

In summary, although agencies report increased compliance with 

security program activities required by FISMA, serious weaknesses 

persist at federal agencies and reported incidents are rising. Until 

agencies fully implement their information security programs, they 

will be exposed to increased risk of cyber attacks. 

The Department of Homeland Security can help agencies mitigate these risks by developing and implementing a strategic analysis and warning capability. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my opening statement. Mr. Powner 

and I will be happy to answer questions. 

[The statement of Mr. Wilshusen follows:] 

8 

1GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, GAO–07–310 (Washington, D.C.: January 2007). 2FISMA was enacted as title III, E-Government Act of 2002, Pub. L. 107–347, 116 Stat. 2946 

(Dec. 17, 2002). 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF GREGORY C. WILSHUSEN

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: 

Thank you for the opportunity to join in today’s hearing to discuss information 

security over federal systems. Information security is a critical consideration for any 

organization that depends on information systems and computer networks to carry 

out its mission or business. It is especially important for government agencies, 

where the public’s trust is essential. The need for a vigilant approach to information 

security is demonstrated by the dramatic increase in reports of security incidents, 

the wide availability of hacking tools, and steady advances in the sophistication and 

effectiveness of attack technology. Proper safeguards are essential to protect systems from attackers attempting to gain access and obtain sensitive information, 

commit fraud, disrupt operations, or launch attacks against other systems. 

For many years, we have reported that poor information security is a widespread 

problem with potentially devastating consequences. In reports to Congress since 

1997, we have identified information security as a governmentwide high-risk issue.1

Concerned by reports of significant weaknesses in federal computer systems, Congress passed the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) of 2002,2

which permanently authorized and strengthened the information security program, 

evaluation, and annual reporting requirements for federal agencies. 

In our testimony today, we will summarize (1)μthe continued weaknesses in information security controls at federal agencies, (2) federal agencies’ reporting of information security incidents, and (3) efforts by the Department of Homeland Security 

(DHS) to develop a cyber threat warning and analysis capability. In preparing for 

this testimony, we relied on our previous reports on information security at federal 

agencies and the challenges faced by DHS in fulfilling its cybersecurity responsibilities. We also analyzed agencies’ Inspector General (IG) reports pertaining to information security; congressional reports; the 24 major federal agencies’ FISMA reports 

for fiscal years 2004, 2005, and 2006; the performance and accountability reports 

for those agencies; and the Office of Management and Budget’s FISMA guidance 

and mandated annual reports to Congress. The work on which this testimony is 

based was performed in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 

standards. 

Results in Brief 

Significant information security weaknesses continue to place federal agencies at 

risk. In their fiscal year 2006 financial statement audit reports, 21 of 24 major agencies cited information security control weaknesses. An underlying cause for these 

weaknesses is that agencies have not fully implemented agencywide information security programs. These weaknesses persist even as many agencies report increased 

implementation of information security program activities. However, until agencies 

effectively and fully implement agencywide information security programs, federal 

data and systems will not be sufficiently safeguarded to prevent unauthorized use, 

disclosure, and modification. 

In 2006, agencies reported a record number of information security incidents to 

US–CERT (Computer Emergency Readiness Team)—the DHS unit responsible for 

collecting such information. At the same time, although agencies have noted improvements in incident reporting procedures, inconsistencies exist across agencies. 

For example, one agency reported no incidents to US–CERT, although it reported 

more than 800 incidents internally and to law enforcement authorities. IGs have 

also reported weaknesses in agencies’ incident reporting procedures. 

In addition to its activities with US–CERT, DHS has taken steps towards addressing prior recommendations for developing a strategic analysis and warning capability for cyber attacks. Specifically, DHS has established various initiatives to enhance its analytical capabilities, including intelligence sharing through US–CERT 

and situational awareness tools at selected federal agencies. We believe that with 

continued progress in addressing strategic analysis and warnings, US–CERT can 

further agencies’ efforts to reduce risks associated with incidents. However, DHS 

has not yet fully implemented our original recommendations, particularly in implementing such a capability beyond the federal environment. 

Background 

Virtually all federal operations are supported by automated systems and electronic data, and agencies would find it difficult, if not impossible, to carry out their 

missions and account for their resources without these information assets. Hence, 

9 

3FISMA charged the Director of OMB with ensuring the operation of a federal information 

security center. The required functions are performed by US–CERT, which was established to 

aggregate and disseminate cybersecurity information to improve warning and response to incidents, increase coordination of response information, reduce vulnerabilities, and enhance prevention and protection. 4 Reportable conditions are significant deficiencies in the design or operation of internal control that could adversely affect the entity’s ability to record, process, summarize, and report financial data consistent with the assertions of management in the financial statements. 5 A material weakness is a reportable condition that precludes the entity’s internal control 

from providing reasonable assurance that misstatements, losses, or noncompliance material in 

relation to the financial statements or to stewardship information would be prevented or detected on a timely basis. 

the degree of risk caused by security weaknesses is high. For example, resources 

(such as federal payments and collections) could be lost or stolen, data could be 

modified or destroyed, and computer resources could be used for unauthorized purposes or to launch attacks on other computer systems. Sensitive information, such 

as taxpayer data, Social Security records, medical records, and proprietary business 

information could be inappropriately disclosed, browsed, or copied for improper or 

criminal purposes. Critical operations could be disrupted, such as those supporting 

national defense and emergency services. Finally, agencies’ missions could be undermined by embarrassing incidents, resulting in diminished confidence in their ability 

to conduct operations and fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities. 

Recognizing the importance of securing federal systems and data, Congress passed 

FISMA, which set forth a comprehensive framework for ensuring the effectiveness 

of security controls over information resources that support federal operations and 

assets. FISMA also defined several public sector responsibilities that have been assumed by US–CERT, a partnership between DHS and the public and private sectors 

that was established in 2003 to coordinate defense against and responses to cyber 

attacks across the nation.3 US–CERT’s responsibilities include compiling and analyzing information about incidents that threaten information security and providing 

timely technical assistance regarding security incidents. 

Significant Weaknesses Continue to Place Federal Agencies at Risk 

Significant weaknesses continue to threaten the confidentiality, integrity and 

availability of federal information and information systems. In their fiscal year 2006 

financial statement audit reports, 21 of 24 major agencies indicated that deficient 

information security controls were either a reportable condition 4 or material weakness (see fig. 1).5

These persistent weaknesses appear in the five major categories of information 

system controls: (1) access controls, which ensure that only authorized individuals 

can read, alter, or delete data; (2) configuration management controls, which provide 

assurance that only authorized software programs are implemented; (3) segregation 

of duties, which reduces the risk that one individual can independently perform inappropriate actions without detection; (4) continuity of operations planning, which 

provides for the prevention of significant disruptions of computer-dependent operations; and (5) an agencywide information security program, which provides the 

framework for ensuring that risks are understood and that effective controls are selected and properly implemented. Figure 2 shows how many of the agencies had 

weaknesses in these five areas. 


11026-1.eps
10 

Access Controls Were Not Adequate 

A basic management control objective for any organization is to protect data supporting its critical operations from unauthorized access, which could lead to improper modification, disclosure, or deletion of the data. Access controls, which are 

intended to prevent, limit, and detect unauthorized access to computing resources, 

programs, information, and facilities, can be both electronic and physical. Electronic 

access controls include use of passwords, access privileges, encryption, and audit 

logs. Physical security controls are important for protecting computer facilities and 

resources from espionage, sabotage, damage, and theft. 

Our analysis of IG, agency, and our own reports uncovered that agencies did not 

have adequate access controls in place to ensure that only authorized individuals 

could access or manipulate data. Of the 24 major agencies, 18 had access control 

weaknesses. Such weaknesses included not replacing well-known vendor-supplied 

passwords, permitting excessive access privileges that users did not need to perform 

their jobs, not encrypting sensitive information, and not creating or maintaining 

adequate audit logs. Agencies also lacked effective physical security controls. For instance, many of the data losses that occurred at federal agencies over the past few 

years were a result of physical thefts or improper safeguarding of systems, including 

laptops and other portable devices. 

Shortcomings Existed in Other Controls 

In addition to access controls, other important controls should be in place to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information. These controls include policies, procedures, and techniques addressing configuration management to 

ensure that software patches are installed; appropriately segregating incompatible 

duties; and establishing service continuity planning. Weaknesses in these areas increase the risk of unauthorized use, disclosure, modification, or loss of information. 

Federal agencies demonstrated weaknesses in these control areas. For example, 

several agencies did not always consistently install critical software patches in a 

timely manner, segregate duties such as security and system administration, or adequately update and test contingency plans. 

Agencywide Security Programs Were Not Fully Implemented 

An underlying cause for the information security weaknesses identified at federal 

agencies is that they have not yet fully implemented agencywide information security programs. An agencywide security program provides a framework and continuing cycle of activity for managing risk, developing security policies, assigning responsibilities, promoting awareness, monitoring the adequacy of the entity’s computer-related controls through security tests and evaluations, and implementing remedial actions as appropriate. Without a well-designed program, security controls 

may be inadequate; responsibilities may be unclear, misunderstood, and improperly 

implemented; and controls may be inconsistently applied. Such conditions may lead 

to insufficient protection of sensitive or critical resources. 

In their annual FISMA reports for fiscal year 2006, agencies reported increased 

compliance in several security program elements required by the law or federal policy. For example, agencies reported increases in the percentages of systems with assigned risk levels, employees receiving security awareness training, systems that 


11026-2.eps
11 

6OMB requires that agency management officials formally authorize their information systems to process information and accept the risk associated with their operation. This management authorization (accreditation) is to be supported by a formal technical evaluation (certification) of the management, operational, and technical controls established in an information 

system’s security plan. 7GAO, Information Security: Agencies Need to Develop and Implement Policies for Periodic 

Testing, GAO–07–65 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 20, 2006). 8 Committee on Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives, Staff Report: Agency 

Breaches Since January 1, 2003 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 13, 2006). 

have been certified and accredited 6 and systems whose security controls were tested 

and evaluated. 

However, our reports and those of agency IGs indicate that at least 18 of the 24 

major agencies had not fully implemented agencywide programs. For example, agencies often did not effectively ensure that all employees and contractors, including 

those with significant information security responsibilities, received sufficient training. Also, 10 IGs rated the quality of their agencies’ certification and accreditation 

process as ‘‘poor’’ or ‘‘failing’’ and continued to identify specific weaknesses with the 

process, such as incomplete risk assessments and security plans. We have also identified shortcomings in agencies’ efforts in testing and evaluating the effectiveness of 

their information security controls. In 2006, we reported that agencies had not adequately designed and effectively implemented policies for performing such tests and 

evaluations.7 Policies often did not include elements important for performing effective testing. In addition, at agencies where we examined the effectiveness of security 

controls, we found that they did not identify many of the vulnerabilities we identified on their systems. Further, for case studies of 30 systems at six agencies, weaknesses included insufficient testing documentation, inadequately defined assessment 

methods, inadequate security testing, and lack of remedial actions included in testing plans. Finally, for 16 of 24 major agencies, IGs were not able to provide assurance that their agencies almost always incorporated weaknesses for all systems into 

their remediation plans. Our reviews have also reported that weaknesses were not 

always resolved as reported, and agencies’ remedial action plans did not identify resources necessary to correct weaknesses and were not always updated. 

As a result, agencies do not have reasonable assurance that controls are implemented correctly, operating as intended, or producing the desired outcome with respect to meeting the security requirements of the agency. Furthermore, agencies 

may not be fully aware of the security control weaknesses in their systems, thereby 

leaving their information and systems vulnerable to attack or compromise. Until 

agencies effectively and fully implement agencywide information security programs, 

federal data and systems will not be adequately safeguarded to prevent unauthorized use, disclosure, and modification. 

Incident Reporting Varies Across Agencies 

Although strong controls may not block all intrusions and misuse, organizations 

can reduce the associated risks if they take steps to detect and respond to them before significant damage occurs. Accounting for and analyzing security problems and 

incidents are also effective ways for an organization to improve its understanding 

of security threats and potential costs of security incidents, as well as pinpointing 

vulnerabilities that need to be addressed so that they are not exploited again. When 

incidents occur, agencies are to notify the federal information security incident center—US–CERT. 

According to the US–CERT annual report for fiscal year 2006, federal agencies reported a record number of incidents, with a notable increase in incidents reported 

in the second half of the year. As figure 3 shows, since 2005, the number of incidents reported to US–CERT increased in every category except for malicious code. 

Further, a 2006 report by the House Committee on Government Reform illustrated 

that agencies have a wide range of incidents involving loss or theft and privacy 

breaches.8 The report further indicates that the loss of personally identifiable information occurs governmentwide and is not limited to the well-publicized incident at 

the Department of Veterans Affairs (which involved information on about 26.5 million veterans and active duty military personnel). 

12 

9GAO, Critical Infrastructure Protection: Department of Homeland Security Faces Challenges 

in Fulfilling Cybersecurity Responsibilities, GAO–05–434 (Washington, D.C.: May 26, 2005). 10GAO, Critical Infrastructure Protection: DHS Leadership Needed to Enhance Cybersecurity, 

GAO–06–1087T (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 13, 2006). 

Although agencies have noted many improvements in incident reporting procedures, there are still inconsistencies in reporting at various levels. For example, one 

agency reported no incidents to US–CERT, although it reported more than 800 incidents internally and to law enforcement authorities. Several IGs also noted specific 

weaknesses in incident procedures such as components not reporting incidents reliably, information being omitted from incident reports, and reporting time requirements not being met. Without properly accounting for and analyzing security problems and incidents, agencies risk losing valuable information needed to prevent future exploits and understand the nature and cost of threats directed at them. 

DHS Is Acting to Implement GAO Recommendations on Strategic Analysis 

and Warning, But More Actions Needed 

Strategic analysis and warning is an essential element of assisting agencies in addressing information security incidents. We have previously reported that developing and enhancing a national cyber analysis and warning capability is a key DHS 

cybersecurity responsibility.9 Over the last several years, we have made recommendations to DHS—as the nation’s focal point for cyber critical infrastructure 

protection—to develop a strategic analysis and warning capability for addressing 

cyber attacks.10 Accordingly, we recommended that responsible executive branch officials and agencies establish a capability for strategic analysis of computer-based 

threats, including developing a methodology, acquiring expertise, and obtaining infrastructure data. 

DHS has taken steps towards addressing our recommendations. As we reported 

in 2005, DHS established various initiatives to enhance its analytical capabilities, 

including intelligence-sharing through US–CERT and situational awareness tools 

through the US–CERT Einstein program at selected federal agencies. The Einstein 

Program provides an automated process for collecting, correlating, analyzing, and 

sharing computer security information across the federal civilian government. Einstein is currently deployed to nine federal agencies; US–CERT plans to deploy Einstein to an additional 10 to 15 agencies in fiscal year 2008, with a goal of deploying 

it to all cabinet level and critical independent federal agencies. According to DHS 

officials, Einstein has greatly reduced the time for the federal government to gather 

and share critical data on computer security risks (from 5 to 7 days to 4 to 5 hours). 

Further, the officials stated that Einstein has the potential to reduce data collection 

and information sharing to under 2 hours, allowing for vast improvements in governmental cyber response and recovery times. If properly implemented and expanded as planned, DHS’s efforts in this program could strengthen its cyber threat 

analysis and warning capability. However, DHS has not yet fully implemented our 

original recommendations, particularly in implementing such a capability beyond 

the federal environment. 

In summary, although agencies report increased compliance with security program activities required by FISMA and federal policy, serious weaknesses persist 

at federal agencies, and reported incidents are rising. The weaknesses exist, in part, 


11026-3.eps
13 

because agencies have not fully implemented their information security programs. 

Until such programs are fully implemented, agencies will be at increased risk of exposure to cyber attacks. As agencies report record numbers of incidents, inconsistencies in reporting persist. With continued progress in addressing strategic analysis 

and warnings, DHS’s US–CERT can help agencies mitigate the risk associated with 

incidents. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes our statement. We would be happy to answer any 

questions at this time. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Reid? 

STATEMENT OF DONALD REID, SENIOR COORDINATOR FOR 

SECURITY INFRASTRUCTURE, BUREAU OF DIPLOMATIC 

SECURITY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Mr. REID. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman McCaul and 

Congressman Etheridge. I am Donald Reid, the senior coordinator 

for security infrastructure, Bureau of Diplomatic Security at the 

Department of State. I am privileged to have this opportunity to 

testify before the subcommittee about a cyber intrusion we experienced at the department last spring. 

Before discussing this intrusion in detail, I would like to inform 

the subcommittee generally how the State Department has structured its information technology assets to deal with cyber threats. 

The chief information officer employs a strategic layered approach 

to risk management of our information and information assets. 

This security strategy, which we call ‘‘defense in depth,’’ provides 

the department multiple levels of defense and protection through 

a matrix of operational, technical and managerial security controls. 

We focus on identifying and mitigating emerging threats because 

of our overseas exposure. Our architecture includes requisite perimeter security tools and devices, virus detection and response capability, an effective patch management program, network operations and traffic flow analysis, intrusion detection and response 

capability, security configuration controls, and compliance 

verification, to name a few. 

At each of our domestic and overseas locations, we employ U.S.- 

citizen information systems security officers. At 10 overseas locations, we also have highly trained cybersecurity engineers. It is 

worth noting that the cybersecurity team at State won the National 

Security Agency’s prestigious Frank B. Rowlett Award for its organizational excellence and information assurance in 2005, a first for 

the State Department. 

Now, let me provide you some details about our cyber intrusion 

last year. In this open session, I will describe how the department 

responded as a team with our community of partners to a sophisticated attack, while taking care to avoid those specifics that would 

make it easier to harm government systems in the future. 

In late May 2006, a socially engineered e-mail was sent to an 

employee in the East Asia Pacific region. The e-mail appeared to 

be legitimate and contained a Word document attachment of a congressional speech on a topic germane to this region of the world. 

Later analysis confirmed the attachment contained an exploit code 

hidden within a known Microsoft application for which there was 

no readily available security patch. 

14 

Once the recipient clicked on the attachment, the embedded malicious code established backdoor communications outside the department’s network via a Trojan Horse. This external communication was immediately detected by our 24/7 intrusion detection system, and the department’s computer incident response team was 

activated. 

The network operations staff was directed to block communications to suspect external I.P.s and the information system security 

officer at post was directed to move the infected devices from the 

network. Additionally, we dispatched an overseas cybersecurity engineer to the post, who then began a detailed on-site analysis of the 

infected computers. 

We also reported the malicious activity to the U.S. compute readiness team at the Department of Homeland Security. As we continued tracing the anomalous activity on our network, we identified 

additional intrusions and compromises, both in Washington and at 

other posts in the East Asia Pacific region. Our cyber analysts tested and evaluated captured malicious code and shared the results 

with trusted anti-virus vendors who quickly developed appropriate 

signatures for detecting and eradicating the malicious code. 

Further analysis by our cybersecurity engineer at site and our 

team in D.C. led to the discovery of a second unknown vulnerability, this time in the operating system, for which no security 

patch existed. Homeland Security played a critical coordinating 

role with Microsoft, urging them to develop and deploy a brand 

new patch as quickly as possible. 

At this stage, the CIO directed the establishment of a task force, 

a multi-bureau working group operating around the clock from 

within the secretary’s operations center. The task force worked 

with staffs at post in their effort to mitigate the system compromises, rebuild servers, re-set passwords, and perform numerous 

other related tasks. 

It should be noted that while the intruder’s activities greatly concerned us, they did not immediately attempt to steal data. Once 

the network monitoring staff saw limited data being exfiltrated, 

Internet connectivity throughout East Asia Pacific region was immediately severed. 

To develop an interim fix, we consulted with experts in industry 

and government, and created a temporary wrapper that would protect systems from being exploited further, but would not fix the 

vulnerability. The task force prescribed a remediation protocol restoring connectivity at the post that included completely sanitizing 

infected computers and servers, rebuilding them, changing all passwords, installing several critical patches along with the temporary 

wrapper, and updating anti-virus software. 

The mandatory corrective actions were then confirmed via remote scans from Washington and on-site verification by post. By 

early July 2006, all posts were operating normally and we have not 

experienced similar malicious activity in our unclassified network 

since. 

As I know you can appreciate, it is important to our overall success to handle these intrusions quietly and effectively, engaging a 

minimum number of players needed. We were successful here until 

a newspaper article telegraphed what we were dealing with. Still, 

15 

we were able to fully inform the department’s oversight, intelligence and appropriations committees of the significant details of 

the intrusion, while at the same time the Department of Homeland 

Security continued to engage Microsoft to deploy the needed patch. 

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you and the subcommittee members for this opportunity, and I would be pleased to respond to your 

questions. 

[The statement of Mr. Reid follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DONALD R. REID

Good afternoon Chairman Langevin, Congressman McCaul, and distinguished 

Members of the Subcommittee: 

I am Donald R. Reid, the Senior Coordinator for Security Infrastructure, Bureau 

of Diplomatic Security at the Department of State. I am privileged to have this opportunity to testify before the Subcommittee about a cyber intrusion we experienced 

at the Department last spring. My statement will concentrate on events surrounding this targeted attack to the State Department’s unclassified network in the 

May to July 2006 timeframe, how and when we detected the intrusion, who we notified and engaged to assist in defending our network, how we mitigated the damage 

and what improvements we have made at the Department to strengthen our cyber 

defenses. 

Before discussing this intrusion in detail, I would like to inform the Subcommittee 

generally how the State Department has structured its information technology assets to deal with cyber threats. To meet the Secretary’s requirement for the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of IT systems and networks in the conduct 

of diplomacy, the Chief Information Officer employs a strategic, layered approach 

to comprehensive risk management of our information and information assets. This 

security strategy, which we call ‘‘Defense in Depth,’’ provides the Department multiple levels of defense and protection through a matrix of operational, technical, and 

managerial security controls. We focus on identifying and mitigating emerging 

threats because of our overseas exposure. 

At the direction of former Secretary of State Powell, and embraced by Secretary 

Rice, the Department embarked on an aggressive program to modernize its IT systems and networks ensuring that every employee had Internet access. While Internet access can and has greatly facilitated the conduct of diplomacy, it also brings 

inherent risks. Our architecture includes requisite perimeter security tools and devices, virus detection and response capability, an effective patch management program, network operations and traffic flow analysis, intrusion detection and response 

capability, security configuration controls and compliance verification to name a few. 

Over our unclassified network, we daily process about 750,000 e-mails and instant 

messages from our more than 40,000 employees and contractors at 100 domestic and 

260 overseas locations. Also, on a daily basis, we block 500,000 spam e-mails, intercept 5,100 viruses and detect some 2,000,000 anomalous external probes to our network. At each of our domestic and overseas locations we employ U.S citizen Information System Security Officers. At 10 overseas locations, we also have highlytrained, cyber security engineers. 

It is worth noting that the cyber security team at State won the National Security 

Agency’s prestigious Frank B. Rowlett Award for its organizational excellence in information assurance in 2005—a first for the State Department. Additionally, a number of individual members have won IT community-wide recognition for their contributions and leadership. Now, let me provide you some details about our cyber intrusion last year. In this open session, I will describe how the Department responded as a team with our community of partners to a sophisticated attack, while 

taking care to avoid those specifics that would make it easier to harm government 

systems in the future. 

In late May 2006, a socially-engineered e-mail was sent to an employee in the 

East Asia Pacific region. The e-mail appeared to be legitimate and was sent to an 

actual Department e-mail address. The e-mail contained a Word document attachment of a Congressional speech on a topic germane to this region of the world. Later 

analysis confirmed the attachment contained exploit code hidden within a known 

Microsoft application that took advantage of a vulnerability for which there was no 

readily available patch. Once the recipient clicked on the attachment the embedded 

malicious code established backdoor communications outside of the Department’s 

network via a Trojan Horse. This external communication was immediately detected 

16 

by our 24/7 intrusion detection system and the Department?s Computer Incident Response Team was activated. 

At this point, without full knowledge of how the exploit worked and not wanting 

to exacerbate the situation, network operations staff was directed to block communications to suspect external IPs and the information system security officer at post 

was directed to remove the infected devices from the network. In fact, we dispatched 

an overseas cyber security engineer to the post and began a detailed, on-site analysis of the infected computers. We also reported the malicious activity to US CERT 

at the Department of Homeland Security. 

As we continued tracing the anomalous activity on our network, we identified additional intrusions and compromises both in Washington and other posts in the East 

Asia Pacific region. Our mitigation activity was continued, and we maintained effective communication with US CERT. As the State Department’s cyber analysts tested 

and evaluated captured malicious code, they shared their results with the greater 

Computer Network Defense community as well as trusted anti-virus vendors. This 

real-time information sharing practice resulted in the anti-virus vendors quickly developing appropriate signatures for detecting and eradicating the malicious code and 

they deployed their results worldwide through their daily virus definition updates. 

Meanwhile, critical analysis by our cyber security engineer at site and our team 

in D.C. led to the discovery of a previously unknown operating system vulnerability 

for which no security patch existed. The Department of Homeland Security played 

a critical coordinating role with Microsoft, urging them to develop and deploy a 

brand new patch as quickly as possible. State also reached out to the FBI for assistance, leveraging a well-established existing relationship. 

At this stage, the CIO directed the establishment of a Task Force; a multi–Bureau 

working group operating around the clock from within the Secretary?s operations 

center. The Task Force worked with staffs at post in their efforts to mitigate the 

system compromises, rebuild servers, reset passwords, and performed numerous 

other related tasks. It should be noted while the intruders’ activities greatly concerned us, they did not immediately attempt to steal data. Therefore, Task Force 

members proposed a set of ‘‘tripwires’’ for disconnecting posts from the Internet if 

the activity got more daring, especially if data was being stolen. Once the network 

monitoring staff saw limited data being exfiltrated, Internet connectivity throughout 

the East Asia Pacific region was immediately severed. 

When it became apparent Microsoft was unable to further expedite testing and 

deployment of a new patch for the previously unknown vulnerability, the Department was left to develop its own interim fix. After consulting with experts in industry and government, the cyber team developed a temporary ‘‘wrapper’’ that would 

protect systems from being exploited further, but would not ‘‘fix’’ the vulnerability. 

The Task Force prescribed a remediation protocol for restoring connectivity for posts 

that included completely sanitizing infected computers and servers and rebuilding 

them, changing all passwords, installing several critical patches along with the temporary ‘‘wrapper,’’ and updating anti-virus software. These mandatory corrective actions were then confirmed via remote scans from Washington and on-site 

verification by posts. By early July 2006, all posts were operating normally and we 

have not experienced similar malicious activity in our unclassified network since. 

Microsoft did deploy its patch for this exploit in August 2006. 

As I know you can appreciate, it is important to our overall success to handle 

these intrusions quietly and effectively, engaging the minimum number of players 

needed. We were successful here until a newspaper article telegraphed what we 

were dealing with. Still, we were able to fully inform the Department’s oversight, 

intelligence and appropriation committees of the significant details of this intrusion 

while, at the same time, the Department of Homeland Security continued to engage 

Microsoft to deploy the needed patch. 

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you and the Subcommittee members for this opportunity. I would be pleased to respond to any of your questions. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. You are welcome. 

Mr. Jarrell? 

STATEMENT OF DAVE JARRELL, MANAGER, CRITICAL 

INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION PROGRAM, U.S. 

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 

Mr. JARRELL. Chairman Langevin, Ranking Member McCaul, 

and distinguished members of the subcommittee, I am David 

Jarrell and I represent the Department of Commerce. 

17 

I will focus my statement on how the Department of Commerce 

works with our technology partners to ensure the security of our 

systems. I will also highlight Commerce interaction with the Department of Homeland Security US–CERT. And I will brief you on 

the cyber incident that was discovered July 13, 2006, affecting our 

Bureau of Industry and Security. 

Commerce security personnel work hard to protect our infrastructure and data. We exercise careful consideration in selecting 

and implementing technology that allows us to carry out our mission goals. With regard to protecting Commerce infrastructure, we 

rely on the security technology that is designed and tested by industry experts, and that adds value to the overall security posture 

of Commerce I.T. systems. 

Information technology and industry partners provide support in 

the form of program and system patches. These patches are critical 

when new or zero-day vulnerabilities are identified. We also rely on 

the support of organizations like US–CERT. Commerce, like other 

federal government agencies, is notified by DHS US–CERT, the 

GFIRST, when new vulnerabilities are identified and require our 

attention. 

Commerce manages seven computer incident response teams decentralized throughout the department, one of which supports BIS. 

These seven teams form the Commerce federation of computer incident response teams. To facilitate immediate notification, each 

team is required to report directly to US–CERT for FISMA and 

OMB guidance and the US–CERT concept of operations. 

In regards to the BIS incident, on July 13, 2006, the BIS deputy 

under secretary discovered that he was unable to log onto his computer upon arrival to his office. During their investigation, BIS 

staff found that one BIS-infected computer attempted to access the 

deputy under secretary’s account to no avail. It was later found 

that the network account was in lockout status because of the multiple unsuccessful log-in attempts. This lockout status is an automated process configured to prevent unauthorized access to BIS accounts. 

Early during the investigation, Commerce notified US–CERT of 

the incident. BIS staff worked with the Commerce computer incident response team and our network operations staff and discovered that several other computers were involved in the incident. 

After being briefed on this new information, the Commerce incident 

response team escalated the incident, contacted US–CERT and requested on-site technical support. 

As a result, two security engineers worked with Commerce to collect forensics evidence of computer drives. Commerce also provided 

virus-infected files to out anti-virus service provider, who in turn 

provided files to detect infections on BIS and other computers. 

Over the course of the investigation, BIS network staff continued 

to monitor the incident. In total, 32 BIS and one non–BIS computer 

were found to be infected, all of which were removed from the network and quarantined. 

Throughout this process, a block list was imposed to filter and 

prevent access to Web sites associated with the BIS incident. These 

blocks and filters remain in place today. Associated website addresses and infected file names were also shared with US–CERT. 

18 

BIS management took immediate action from the time this incident 

was discovered. The interactive process between BIS, our network 

operations staff, and our incident response team enabled us to isolate infected computers. 

We received timely and useful support from US–CERT, the 

GFIRST, and our antivirus providers. We have no evidence to believe that BIS data was taken as a result of this incident, and we 

believe that all appropriate actions were taken. Unfortunately, 

hackers and malicious code continually pose threats to our computers and networks. The results are sometimes unpredictable. 

That said, our I.T. security and operations staff are ready to face 

the challenge. 

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the subcommittee 

today. I am happy to answer any questions. 

[The statement of Mr. Jarrell follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DAVID E. JARRELL

Chairman Langevin, Ranking Member McCaul, Chairman Thompson, Ranking 

Member King, and distinguished members of the Subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity to address you on the state of cyber security protecting the Department 

of Commerce (Commerce). 

The Commerce Information Technology (IT) security program ensures that adequate controls are in place to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability 

of non-national security and national security IT systems and the data they process, 

transmit, and store. To fulfill the Departments requirements under the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) of 2002, the IT Security Program establishes a framework of policies and procedures consistent with government-wide 

laws and regulations, ensures systems are categorized and assessed for risk of 

harm, conducts periodic monitoring of control effectiveness, monitors tracking and 

completion of corrective actions, and trains personnel with IT security responsibilities. 

Commerce consists of 13 bureaus that support its mission goals and objectives. 

This written testimony and my oral testimony will focus on the cyber intrusion affecting the Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), Commerce coordination with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), United States—Computer 

Emergency Readiness Team (US–CERT), and the Department of State (State), and 

will offer a broad perspective of the Commerce IT security program. 

PREVENTIVE MEASURES & SECURITY POSTURING 

Commerce and its bureaus work diligently to ensure a sound and comprehensive 

IT security program. To that end, Commerce IT personnel ensure compliance with 

Federal requirements such as the FISMA, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) 

Circular A–130, Appendix III, Security of Federal Automated Information Resources, Government Accountability Office (GAO) guidance, as well as guidance 

issued for use within Federal civilian government Departments and Agencies and 

throughout the IT system development life cycle. That guidance comes in the form 

of National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Special Publications. 

Other guidance considered when designing and deploying operational IT systems is 

derived from industry services, capabilities, and best practices. 

IT systems designed to support the business needs of the Department are typically managed within the program for which they will be utilized. The systems are 

also reviewed by the Department’s Chief Information Officer (CIO) Council and/or 

Commerce IT Review Board (CITRB) before funding and other resources are allocated to support the system’s development and integration into the Commerce infrastructure. It is this scrutiny that senior IT staff use to determine if adequate security planning and controls are integrated into the system development life cycle 

(SDLC) and enterprise architecture. In addition, other security measures are integrated into the design, implementation, and operation of all IT systems within Commerce. 

Commerce’s enterprise architecture and IT Security Program Policy and Minimum 

Implementation Standards require the integration of security infrastructure for indepth control, both at the perimeter and within the program’s infrastructure. Examples of the infrastructure include the use of robust router and firewall technology, 

vulnerability scans and penetration testing of IT systems, monitoring of firewall and 

19 

Intrusion Detection and Prevention System logs, email filtering, spam filters, antivirus software, and intrusion detection and prevention systems. 

A management control implemented throughout Commerce includes user awareness training programs, an important aspect of the Department’s first line of defense. IT security awareness consists of reminders that focus the user’s attention on 

the concept of IT security in the user’s daily routine. Awareness provides a general 

cognizance or mindfulness of one’s actions, and the consequences of those actions. 

Awareness activities provide the means to highlight when a significant change in 

the IT security program policy or procedures occurs, when an incident occurs, or 

when a weakness in a security control is found. IT security training develops skills 

and knowledge such that computer users can perform their jobs more securely, and 

develop relevant and necessary security skills and competencies in those who access 

or manage Commerce information and resources. Commerce system users are required to take computer security training on a annual basis, and all new employees/ 

contractors to Commerce are provided training during in-processing prior to being 

issued a user login. In addition, IT administrators are required to take additional 

training courses each year that directly apply to their work related activities. We 

are currently assessing the option of using an Information System Security Line of 

Business Shared Service Center as a general security awareness training provider. 

This initiative is an E-Government Line of Business, managed by the Department 

of Homeland Security, intending to make the Government-wide IT security processes more efficient. 

In addition to intra-departmental controls and counter measures, the Department 

ensures that key personnel remain fully aware of U.S. Government-wide initiatives 

and programs that affect the operation or security of its IT systems. Commerce supports U.S. Government security response and planning committees to include the 

National Cyber Response Coordination Group (NCRCG), the Critical Infrastructure 

Protection Policy Coordination Committee (CIP PCC), and the National Communications System (NCS) Committee of Principals and Representatives (COP/COR). 

COMMERCE FEDERATION OF COMPUTER INCIDENT RESPONSE TEAM 

For each bureau operating within Commerce, there are established Computer Incident Response Teams (CIRTs) that provide incident response for their respective 

bureau. Of the 13 bureaus operating within Commerce, there are six bureaus that 

enable their own cyber incident response programs through the use of bureau resources, including technical staff and technology. The remaining Commerce bureaus 

receive cyber incident response support from the centrally managed Department of 

Commerce Computer Incident Response Team (DOC CIRT). The DOC CIRT continually strives to reduce incident response time and increase effectiveness. 

To support this decentralized computer incident response capability, Commerce 

also manages a Federation of Computer Incident Response Teams—where all CIRTs 

within the Department are represented. This intra–Departmental forum allows all 

Commerce CIRTs to share information on a particular incident, discuss technology 

and security countermeasures, and leverage Department-wide resources in the event 

of a large-scale attack. 

Incident reports are filed directly to the DHS US–CERT in all incidents involving 

Department IT resources, per FISMA, other OMB guidance, and DHS US–CERT 

Concept of Operations (CONOPS). 

On a more global level, the DHS coordinates and manages the Government Forum 

of Incident Response and Security Teams (GFIRST). GFIRST is a group of technical 

and tactical practitioners of security response teams responsible for securing government IT systems, of which the Commerce Federation of Computer Incident Response 

Teams maintain membership and active participation. GFIRST members work together to understand and handle computer security incidents and to encourage 

proactive and preventative security practices. Through participation in the GFIRST, 

Commerce IT security professionals receive technical information, tools, methods, 

assistance and guidance on cyber issues, share specific technical details regarding 

incidents within a trusted U.S. government environment on a peer-to-peer level, and 

improve incident response operations. 

Initial BIS Incident Response and Reporting 

Following the Department’s guidance on reporting cyber incidents, BIS worked 

with the Network Operations Center (NOC), and the DOC CIRT to investigate suspicious behavior on BIS logical segment of the Commerce network, and its 

workstations. After the BIS and Commerce NOC staff confirmed that three 

workstations exhibited suspicious behavior, and removed them from the network, 

and BIS formally reported to the DOC CIRT that a breach of security occurred. As 

a result of this notification, the DOC CIRT notified the Director, IT Security, Infrastructure and Technology, the CIO, and the Network Operations Center (NOC), 

20 

which manages the infrastructure and ‘‘back bone’’ network on which BIS Internet 

traffic traverses. The DOC CIRT also notified the US–CERT and the Department’s 

Office of the Inspector General (OIG). 

The BIS cyber incident was discovered when the BIS Deputy Under Secretary discovered that he was unable to log into his computer upon arrival to his office on 

July 13, 2006, at 8:23 a.m. He immediately notified his CIO and security team, 

which determined that his network account was in lock-out status because three unsuccessful attempts were made to log into his account. This event was initially handled internally within BIS until such time that system staff determined it to be 

more significant and a reportable incident. Once determined to be an incident, as 

defined by Commerce policy, it was reported to the DOC CIRT. 

A timeline of events was created in support of the BIS incident from a BIS, DOC 

CIRT, and NOC perspective: • July 13, 2006 

• The user arrived at work and attempted to log into his computer, but discovered that the BIS system ‘‘auto-locked’’ his account, because failed login 

attempt thresholds of three attempts were reached. This prevented the 

user’s ability to login at 8:23 a.m. 

• The user prompted the BIS internal Help Desk and computer security 

team to begin an investigation of the event. 

• The BIS technical staff discovered that the cause of the account lock-out 

was because a BIS computer attempted to access another BIS computer resource. The computer in question also attempted to execute automated 

processes to access two IP addresses after business hours when the authorized user of that machine was not in the office. 

• Examination of the installed anti-virus client logs revealed detected and 

deleted programs installed on the workstation. These auto-delete actions 

initiated by the anti-virus client occurred at approximately the same time 

that the BIS user’s account was locked-out. 

• The BIS technical team contacted the Commerce NOC and requested 

analysis of firewall logs for the previous night’s IP traffic. During this stage 

of the investigation, the NOC found two additional BIS computers attempting to contact one of the questionable IP addresses. 

• All three infected BIS computers were removed from the network, powered down, and quarantined. 

• The BIS CIO contacted the Commerce CIO to brief him of the situation 

and circumstances surrounding the event, and to advise that a CIRT report 

was being written based on the information gathered during the day and 

evening, and would be filed consistent with Department procedures. • July 14, 2006 

• BIS formally filed the incident report with DOC CIRT that identified 

three of its machines operating on the BIS local area network at 11:51 a.m. 

• The DOC CIRT captured forensic images of the infected computers. The 

DOC CIRT determined the cause of the user account lock-out was likely 

due to the use of the ‘‘net’’ command, which is used in Windows networked 

environments to connect to other network resources. 

• The DOC CIRT reported the BIS incident to the US–CERT at 11:55 a.m. • July 19, 2006 

• The Commerce OIG was notified of the BIS incident at 3:15 p.m. by the 

Commerce Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) Manager • July 20, 2006 

• The DOC CIRT requested assistance from McAfee, the company that provides Commerce anti-virus software, to analyze and provide support to 

identify suspicious files and to create new definition files for detection. • July 21, 2006 

• The DOC CIRT submitted follow-up reports to the US–CERT with investigation status updates, and requested on-site technical assistance from the 

US–CERT at 11:48 a.m. 

• The CIP Manager advised the Department’s Federation of Computer Incident Response Team of the BIS incident, and provided the ‘‘block list’’ of 

IP addresses identified as malicious or suspicious, as well as a list of malicious file names to be monitored. 

• July 22, 2006 

• DOC CIRT received a definition file from McAfee which included unique 

signatures to detect the malicious files identified by the DOC CIRT on July 

20, 2006 

• July 25, 2006 

• The US–CERT provided on-site support to the DOC CIRT. 

21 

• The US–CERT provided the DOC CIRT with updates their initial findings based on forensic image analysis. 

• The DOC CIRT requested additional assistance from McAfee to analyze 

and provide support to identify additional suspicious files and to create new 

definition files for detection. 

• July 25, 2006 

• The Department of Commerce IT staff, including the DOC CIRT, continued to monitor ‘‘block list’’ IP addresses to ensure that unwanted and unauthorized access did not occur. 

• July 26, 2006 

• DOC CIRT received definition file from McAfee with unique signatures 

to detect the malicious files identified by the DOC CIRT on July 25, 2006. 

Throughout the course of the BIS incident investigation, blocking policies of malicious and suspicious IP addresses were imposed by the DOC CIRT, BIS technical 

staff, and the NOC. In addition, DOC firewall administrators and BIS technical 

staff reviewed archive firewall logs in an attempt to identify any previous activity 

fitting the characteristics of the incident. All blocks remain in place today. 

In summary, Commerce and BIS became aware of the break-in to BIS computers 

on July 13, 2006, which was determined not to be the date of the initial infection. 

The firewall logs were restored from the date the incident was discovered and the 

preceding eight months. The DOC CIRT, BIS technical staff, and the NOC reviewed 

and attempted to identify the initial date of the computer system compromise, to 

no avail. While firewall logs were reviewed for the preceding eight months prior to 

detecting the BIS incident, Commerce cannot clearly define the amount of time the 

perpetrators were inside its BIS computers before their presence was discovered. 

BIS has no evidence to show that data was lost as a result of this incident. 

TRACKING AND CONTAINING THE OUTBREAK 

An on-going challenge faced by the Department is the ability to differentiate between real and false-positive cyber security events, given the volume of system logs 

and information collected that must be reviewed to determine which activities are 

actionable. 

BIS management took immediate action from the time the cyber security ‘‘event’’ 

was identified. Upon the determination that it was an ‘‘incident,’’ BIS followed Commerce incident protocol and alerted the DOC CIRT, the NOC, and the Commerce 

CIP Manager. BIS management, along with others within the Department, quickly 

established that their initial discovery of one user account locked-out due to existing 

policy settings included three infected computers that attempted to establish connections with two suspicious IP addresses. 

As discussed in the INITIAL BIS INCIDENT RESPONSE AND REPROTING section of 

this report, the incident was escalated when it was discovered that more than one 

computer was involved. By July 24, 2006, it was discovered that ten computers attempted to establish connections to six suspicious IP addresses. By August 18, 2006, 

through continued and aggressive monitoring by BIS, the Department’s IT staff, and 

support from the DHS US–CERT, it was discovered that a total of 32 BIS computers 

and one non–BIS computer attempted access to eleven suspicious IP addresses, as 

detected by monitoring logs from the Department’s firewalls. It was later found that 

all computers showed signs of infection. 

Several of these victim computers were detected by the custom Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) signatures put into place as part of the Commerce initial response. Of these custom signatures, several indicators were supplied by the US– 

CERT to create custom IDS signatures. In one notable case, a victim computer triggered a custom signature, and was immediately isolated according to the improved 

incident response procedures. Upon further examination, it appeared that the victim 

was in the process of preparing files for exfiltration, but stopped as a result of controls put in place to isolate the incident. Hence the initial actions taken by Commerce, BIS, DHS, and the US–CERT were demonstrably effective in containing the 

damage from the incident. Of the 330 Commerce systems that require certification 

and accreditation in accordance with FISMA, only two systems were affected by this 

incident. 

FISMA and certification and accreditation (C&A) compliance offer IT management 

useful tools to ensure that adequate controls are considered, implemented, and tested throughout the system’s life cycle. BIS did have a FISMA C&A package for its 

system which was reviewed by the Commerce CIO’s office at the time of the incident—the security incident could have occurred regardless of FISMA and C&A status because the incident method of attack uses Internet access to exploit un-patched 

zero-day-attack vulnerabilities, irrespective of the commercial computer security and 

network monitoring tools and standard prescribed Security Test & Evaluation 

22 

(ST&E) penetration testing. This is a key point related to the BIS response, specifically the decision to segregate Internet access. It is also important to note that BIS 

has no evidence to indicate that BIS data has been exfiltrated or compromised. 

EFFECTING CHANGE ON COMMERCE AND BIS SYSTEMS 

BIS implemented host-based measures that revealed other victim computers. Additional victim computers were discovered using host-based measures identifying 

Trojans found dormant on the BIS logical segment of the Commerce network before 

they became active. Processes developed by BIS to discover and stop unauthorized 

activity on their network proved extremely successful. 

BIS established controls to detect and flag any computer infected with variants 

of those files causing compromise to the BIS logical segment of the Commerce network. As a result, the DOC CIRT and the NOC were able to identify those computers infected by the same outbreak traits, which included 33 computers. The Department was able to identify and quarantine the infected 33 computers through effective collaboration between Commerce and BIS IT staff involved in the incident, 

the ‘‘block list’’ of prohibited IP addresses and sites, and other controls to stop unwanted system activity (e.g., systems downloading malicious files, systems access to 

malicious/suspicious sites outside the control of Commerce and BIS). Only one of the 

33 infected computers was outside the control of BIS. 

To ensure that the infection did not spread to other Commerce bureau computer 

systems, file names of the infected files and associated suspicious IP addresses were 

shared among the Department’s Federation of Computer Incident Response Teams. 

After review and analysis of all system logs, no other infections or infestations were 

evident. In addition, all infected computer drives were quarantined from use. After 

sample forensic images were captured for investigative purposes, all drives were 

boxed and have been removed, and secured under lock and key. No data was restored from backup tape as a result of the BIS incident. 

As a precautionary measure, BIS executive management required the implementation of emergency change provisions to the change management process. The 

change involved adding supplemental rules that created additional Virtual Local 

Area Networks (VLANs) assigned to BIS to segregate Internet, office automation, 

and export control system access, and to deny all other access for BIS VLANs. When 

the incident occurred, a policy was invoked to impose more stringent limits on all 

access to or from BIS systems, (e.g., other BIS remote sites, patch management, 

virus definition updates). 

Custom IDS signatures capable of detecting infected files causing impact on BIS 

computers have remained active since the discovery of the first infected computer. 

These IDS safeguards, coupled with augmentation of a newly implemented Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) that monitors data streams to block and/or drop traffic 

based on behavior for egress and ingress to the network were instrumental in containing the damage. There is a high probability that existing backdoors, if any, to 

the network will be detected. In addition to safeguards put in place, BIS has added 

supplemental assurance by segmenting use of their logical network to ensure that 

computers which were connected to the BIS logical segment of the Commerce network during the attack no longer have access to the Internet—effectively segmenting computers used for BIS business processes from any Internet access. Other 

BIS implemented other high assurance safeguards been put in place to sustain continued and reliable operation. It is impossible to say with certainty that 100% of 

the infestation is eradicated from the network, but with active monitoring tools in 

place and an attentive IT team, there is a high probability of detection. 

The DOC CIRT conducts quarterly vulnerability assessments on all devices residing on the Herbert C. Hoover Building Network (HCHBNet), which includes the BIS 

logical segment of the DOC network. These scans involve all devices where an IP 

address is assigned (e.g., server class machines, desktop computers, appliances, 

printers, voice phones). Internet facing systems staged on the HCHBNet Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) are also part of the quarterly vulnerability assessments. In addition to quarterly vulnerability assessments, the DOC CIRT conducts vulnerability 

assessments for bureaus as requested to support certification and accreditation enhancements when newly approved systems and/or network devices are ready for network integration. On average, there are approximately 14,000 checks for potential 

vulnerabilities factored into each assessment. Results of each assessment are shared 

with the bureau CIO and IT Security Officer for action. The last two quarterly scans 

were conducted on December 18, 2006, and again on April 13, 2007. 

In supporting FISMA-required certification and accreditations, the Department 

spends on average between $20K and $250K for Commerce IT systems depending 

on the size, complexity and significance. There are a total of 330 IT systems in the 

Department’s IT inventory. Approximations are provided since legacy systems are 

23 

sometimes retired from production while new systems are introduced. Results of 

each system certification and accreditation security testing exercise yields extremely 

valuable information to the authorizing official who is ultimately responsible for the 

security of their system(s). Used as an education and program enhancement tool, 

yield valuable information pertaining to the system’s overall security posture. An 

itemized inventory of vulnerabilities is generated during security testing that allows 

the system owner to methodically address as either ‘‘quick fix’’ items that can be 

readily resolved, or as mid- to long range items requiring supplemental resources. 

Long-term action items are inventoried in the system’s Plan of Action and Milestones (POA&M). 

Security testing is applied to each system as part of the System Development Life 

Cycle, which ensures that adequate security controls, monitoring, and logging capabilities exist, and that the overall implementation of new technology does not weaken existing security. In addition, introduction of any change is tested in a lab setting 

prior to being brought before the Change Control Board (CCB) for consideration, 

and before final integration into the production environment is allowed. 

Situational Awareness Briefings 

Situational awareness briefings are a tool used by the Commerce (CIO) to allow 

staff to receive status updates on various issues pertaining to cyber security and incident response situations occurring within Commerce. Such situational cyber security awareness briefings come in two forms: proactive and incident response briefings. 

Proactive situational awareness briefings are typically scheduled for senior and 

technical IT professionals on a recurring basis so that they can remain apprised of 

cyber threats and alerts, industry recommendations, product and vendor services 

and capabilities, and other variables. In the realm of cyber threats and alerts, Commerce managers are informed of newly released notifications published by the DHS/ 

US–CERT and other ‘‘watch dog’’ organizations that monitor and provide status on 

cyber-related threats and trends. As a form of proactive briefings, the CIO coordinated briefings from the DHS/US–CERT, and the Department of Defense (DoD) 

Joint Task Force–Global Network Operations (JTF–GNO). These briefings allowed 

Commerce managers to better understand the range and magnitude of cyber-related 

events on a global scale and the specific impacts against U.S. government managed 

IT systems. In all cases, Commerce IT managers have found value in the information provided by DHS/US–CERT, and DoD JTF–GNO. 

Incident Response briefings are designed to inform those charged with the management and control of IT systems and resources of a particular incident and its 

operational impact on an affected system, its data, and the security of the system. 

After the BIS incident was discovered and initial response and reporting requirements were satisfied, several meetings were scheduled for the Department’s senior 

management so that they might better understand the cyber threats faced today. 

To support this initiative, several briefings were scheduled that brought together 

Commerce senior management, the Commerce IT Security Director, the Department 

of Homeland Security, US–CERT management, and DoD JTF–GNO. As a supplemental effort to learn more about incidents involving U.S. Government systems, a 

briefing was scheduled between Commerce and BIS IT managers, and those charged 

with securing the State IT systems, where a ‘‘lessons learned’’ discussion engaged 

all parties. 

Information Technology Security Enahncements 

Monitoring and improving the state of IT security infrastructure capabilities remains a priority for the Commerce CIO. Improvements come in the form of newly 

released technology and upgrades to the Department’s existing infrastructure. Patch 

management for system and appliances are updated routinely and coordinated 

through a formalized CCB. These changes are introduced into a test lab environment where changes and new technology can be evaluated before they are placed 

in a ‘‘production’’ environment. 

To supplement the existing IPS running in IDS mode, the Department has integrated a full scale IPS to achieve active protection at the firewall. This newer technology allows the capture and analysis of both ingress and egress traffic across the 

network in the event of a cyber security incident. A second, more powerful log server 

for faster analysis and redundant storage was procured with log analysis software 

to speed and refine the analysis of firewall and other system logs. In addition, firewall upgrades were enabled to allow deep application inspection of traffic, and firewall log storage was increased to allow more data storage captured from the device(s). 

Minimizing cyber security incident response time is a goal that the entire Federation of Computer Incident Response Team strives to improve. Changes were recently 

24 

made that enable the DOC CIRT to gain direct read access to firewall logs, without 

intervention by the firewall administrators or other third parties, thus improving 

incident response time. 

Commerce will play an active role in the Cyber Storm 2007. Cyber Storm is the 

U.S. DHS National Cyber Security Division (NCSD) national cyber exercise. The exercise is a unique government-led, full-scale, cyber security exercise supporting 

Homeland Security Presidential Directive 7. Commerce also participated in the first 

Cyber Storm 2006 exercise coordinated by DHS/NCSD. 

Commerce is also working with DHS program managers to explore the integration 

of Project Einstein into Commerce managed systems. The US–CERT Einstein Program is an initiative that builds cyber-related situational awareness across the Federal government. The program monitors government agencies’ networks to facilitate 

the identification and response to cyber threats and attacks, improves network security, and increases the resiliency of critical electronically delivered government services. Einstein leverages IT so that the US–CERT can automate the sharing of critical information across the entire Federal government. Enhanced data sharing between Federal government agencies and the US–CERT provides an advanced cyber 

view and analysis of the Federal government’s critical cyber networks. In 2008 the Department has budgeted $120 million for IT security. This funding 

is estimated by the 13 bureaus operating with Commerce for a variety of IT security 

related tasks, including security awareness and training, system certification and 

accreditation, IT security operations improvements, existing security program maintenance, contingency of operations and disaster recovery planning, and other IT security related initiatives. 

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before this Subcommittee today, and I 

would be happy to answer any questions you may have at this time. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Mr. Dixon? 

STATEMENT OF JERRY DIXON, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL CYBER 

SECURITY DIVISION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND 

SECURITY 

Mr. DIXON. Chairman Langevin, Ranking Member McCaul and 

members of the subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity to address you on the National Cyber Security Division’s role in detection of and response to cyber intrusions of federal computer networks. The NCSD is a component of the Office of Cybersecurity 

and Communications within the recently established National Protection of Programs Directorate of the Department of Homeland Security. 

The very topic of this hearing on the need to coordinate and respond to cybersecurity incidents across the federal government is 

among Secretary Chertoff’s highest priorities. The National Cyber 

Security Division’s mandate includes analysis, watch and warning, 

information sharing, vulnerability reduction, aiding national recovery efforts, including working collaboratively with the public and 

private sectors to enhance the security of America’s cyber networks 

and information systems. 

DHS works across its component entities to address cybersecurity in a cohesive manner, as well as with our federal partners 

across the departments and agencies. DHS and NCSD serves as 

the focal point for helping government, industry and the public 

work together to achieve the appropriate responses to cyber threats 

and vulnerabilities. 

The NCSD’s operational arm for cybersecurity is the United 

States Computer Emergency Readiness Team. This team provides 

around-the-clock monitoring of cyber infrastructure and coordinates 

the dissemination of information to key constituencies, including 

all levels of government and industry through its national cyber 

alert system. 

25 

Furthermore, FISMA and OMB policy requires all federal agencies to notify US–CERT of any data breaches, unauthorized access, 

or suspicious activity, including the loss of personally identifiable 

information. The US–CERT played a pivotal role in response efforts to the recent incidents at the Department of Commerce and 

the Department of State. Both incidents highlight that the threat 

to government systems has shifted from opportunistic hacking to 

targeted cyber attacks. 

These cyber attacks are sophisticated and have often led to the 

discovery of new vulnerabilities and applications in operating systems. As a result of these vulnerabilities, U.S–CERT works closely 

with those vendors whose products are affected to collaborate on 

fixes and mitigation strategies, which are communicated to our 

partners within government and industry via the national cyber 

alert system. 

To accomplish our operational mission, US–CERT focuses on enhancing situational awareness, increasing collaboration across 

operational security teams, assisting with prevention or rapid containment of malicious cyber attacks, and providing for interagency 

coordination during a cyber event. To further enhance our incident 

response activities, we have members from the FBI, the United 

States Secret Service, and other agency liaisons that help facilitate 

rapid response and increase our situational awareness. 

Now, to focus on the recent incidents that affected the Departments of State and Commerce. Both departments notified the US– 

CERT in compliance with OMB guidance, FISMA, and the US– 

CERT concept of operations within the required timeframes. In the 

Department of State incident, which involved a newly identified 

Microsoft zero-day vulnerability, the US–CERT immediately engaged to assist with the response efforts as soon as the report was 

received. In collaboration with the Department of State, US–CERT 

coordinated with federal agencies throughout the incidence response and recovery phase. 

At the same time, US–CERT coordinated daily with the Microsoft security response center for vulnerability management, patch 

remediation, and public disclosure coordination. Additional technical analysis revealed this vulnerability to be more dangerous and 

pervasive across all Microsoft operating system platforms. 

Just prior to the public release of the Microsoft security bulletin, 

the US–CERT and Microsoft conducted a series of briefings with 

federal, state and local operational security teams, chief information officers, chief information security officers, and critical infrastructure sectors. Following these briefings, the US–CERT and 

Microsoft jointly released public notification related to the vulnerability and the availability of a security patch. 

In the incident involving the Department of Commerce, the US– 

CERT was notified by the Department of Commerce’s operational 

security team. During this response effort, the US–CERT provided 

on-site assistance to the Department of Commerce CIRT. This enabled on-site collaboration and a rapid analysis of the event so it 

could be quickly contained and remediated. 

The NCSD continues to conduct outreach to federal agencies to 

raise cybersecurity awareness with operational security teams and 

senior officials through its government forum of incident response 

26 

teams known as GFIRST. Moreover, the NCSD continues to work 

with our federal and private-sector stakeholders to identify 

vulnerabilities and quickly identify suspicious activity by enhancing bi-directional information sharing. 

The NCSD also continues to provide cybersecurity training to 

further increase the number of cyber incident responders to enable 

agencies to quickly identify and contain emerging cyber attacks. 

While significant progress has been made to enhance the network 

security of federal departments and agencies, more can and will be 

done. 

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before this subcommittee today. I would be happy to answer any questions you 

may have at this time. 

[The statement of Mr. Dixon follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JERRY DIXON

Chairman Langevin, Ranking Member McCaul and Members of the Subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity to address you on the National Cyber Security Division’s (NCSD) role in detection of and response to intrusions of Federal 

computer networks. The NCSD is a component of the Office of Cyber Security and 

Communications (CS&C) within the recently established National Protection and 

Programs Directorate (NPPD) of the Department of Homeland Security. Assistant 

Secretary for Cyber Security and Communications Gregory Garcia is responsible for 

the overarching mission of CS&C to prepare for and respond to incidents that could 

degrade or overwhelm the operation of our Nation’s IT and communications infrastructure. This mission is part of a larger strategy to ensure the security, integrity, 

reliability, and availability of our information and communications networks. Indeed, the very topic of this hearing – that is, the need to coordinate better 

cyber security practices across the Federal government – is among Secretary 

Chertoff’s highest priorities. 

The NCSD was created in June 2003 to serve as a national focal point for cyber 

security and to coordinate implementation of the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace (‘‘the Strategy’’) issued by President Bush in February 2003. The Strategy outlines a national framework of priorities, which are reflected in NCSD programs, to 

promote cyber security and public-private partnerships. The NCSD’s mandate includes analysis, watch and warning, information sharing, vulnerability reduction, 

aiding national recovery efforts for critical infrastructure information systems, and 

working collaboratively with the public and private sectors to secure America’s cyber 

networks, systems, and assets. DHS works across its component entities to address 

cyber security in a cohesive manner, as well as with our Federal partners across 

the departments and agencies. 

The NCSD’s watch and warning mechanism for cyber infrastructure is the United 

States–Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US–CERT). This team provides 

around-the-clock monitoring of cyber infrastructure and coordinates the dissemination of information to key constituencies including all levels of government and industry. DHS and NCSD/US–CERT serve as the focal point for helping government, 

industry, and the public work together to achieve the appropriate responses to cyber 

threats and vulnerabilities 

A key area of focus for NCSD/US–CERT is our work with the Federal departments and agencies. 

Programs and Initiatives 

The NCSD/US–CERT has a number of programs and initiatives to accomplish our 

operational mission of coordinating improvements in the security and management 

of the Federal Government’s information systems and networks. These programs 

focus on enhancing situational awareness, increasing collaboration across Federal 

operational security teams, preventing or quickly containing cyber incidents, and 

providing for inter-agency coordination during a cyber event. 

The NCSD manages the Einstein program, which supports Federal agencies’ efforts to protect their computer networks. Einstein provides the first situational 

awareness picture of the Federal Government’s Internet facing networks. It enables 

the rapid detection of cyber attacks affecting agencies and provides Federal agencies 

with early incident detection. Einstein is currently deployed at ten Federal agencies 

27 

with a goal to deploy it to all Cabinet level and critical independent Federal agencies. 

Einstein has greatly reduced the time for the Federal Government to gather and 

share critical data on computer security risks from days to hours. 

Another major program is the Information Systems Security Line of Business (ISS 

LOB). The NCSD was designated by OMB as the managing agency for the ISS LOB, 

which is part of the President’s Management Agenda. The ISS LOB allows all Federal departments and agencies to benefit from improved levels of cyber security, reduced costs, elimination of duplicative efforts, and improved quality of service and 

expertise. The program addresses four information security areas that are common 

across the Federal Government: Security Training, Federal Information Security 

Management Act (FISMA) Reporting, Emerging Security Solutions for the Lifecycle, 

and Situational Awareness and Incident Response. 

Additionally, CS&C’s mission is enhanced through the continued development of 

the National Response Plan (NRP). The NRP provides the structure and mechanisms for Federal support to State, local, and tribal incident managers. In coordination with other Federal agencies, CS&C has been working to provide mechanisms 

for improving national-level response to Information Technology and Communications incidents. The Cyber Incident Annex to the NRP provides a framework for addressing a cyber event which requires a federally coordinated response, and it formalizes the National Cyber Response Coordination Group (NCRCG) as the principal 

Federal interagency mechanism to coordinate preparation for and response to a national-level cyber incident. The NCRCG, co-chaired by DHS, Department of Defense, 

and Department of Justice, coordinates recommendations and facilitates direct actions to obtain the necessary interagency support to respond to major cyber incidents. 

Through the NCSD exercise program, we regularly test our plans and procedures. 

In February 2006 we held the first national cyber exercise, ‘‘Cyber Storm,’’ to examine various aspects of our operational mission. This included the activation of the 

NCRCG and working with other Federal agencies on cyber security response to address the exercise scenarios. Lessons learned and after action items from that effort 

continue to be addressed by NCSD and other participants. Progress made to improve response processes and procedures since Cyber Storm, as well as other regional exercises that we sponsor, will be measured in Cyber Storm II, which is 

scheduled for March 2008. 

We also worked collaboratively with the Air Force, the National Institute of 

Standards and Technology (NIST), the Defense Information Systems Agency, the 

National Security Agency, and Microsoft to establish common security configurations for Windows XP and VISTA. Common security configurations provide a baseline level of security, reduce risk from security threats and vulnerabilities, and save 

time and resources. This allows agencies to improve system performance, decrease 

operating costs, and ensure public confidence in the confidentiality, integrity, and 

availability of government information. The configurations can be found on our 

website and we are working with NIST to help agencies adopt them. 

Finally, the US–CERT Operations Incident Handling Center provides a 24 hour 

a day, seven day a week watch center that conducts daily analysis and situational 

monitoring. The Center identifies trends and provides information on incidents and 

other events, as they are detected and unfold, to increase situational awareness and 

understanding of the current operating environment. FISMA policy requires all Federal agencies to notify US–CERT of any data breaches, unauthorized access, or suspicious activity, including the loss of personally identifiable information (PII). 

Recent Response Efforts 

The NCSD/US–CERT played a pivotal role in response efforts to the recent incidents at the Department of Commerce (DOC) and the Department of State (DOS). 

Both incidents highlight that the threat to government systems has shifted from opportunistic hacking to targeted cyber attacks. These cyber attacks are sophisticated 

and have often led to the discovery of new vulnerabilities in applications or operating systems. As a result of these vulnerabilities, NCSD/US–CERT works closely 

with those vendors whose products are affected to collaborate on fixes and mitigation strategies, which are communicated to our partners within government and industry via the National Cyber Alert System. These incidents highlight the need for 

enhanced rapid situational awareness across the Federal Government. In addition, 

the Einstein early watch and warning system has been implemented at the DOS 

and groundwork is being laid to implement Einstein at the DOC in the near future. 

In both incidents, the affected Departments notified the US–CERT in compliance 

with OMB guidance, FISMA, and the US–CERT Concept of Operations (CONOPS) 

within the required timeframes. While the details of these incidents should be proVerDate Nov 24 2008 07:50 Jun 15, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\DOCS\110-HRGS\110-26\43562.TXT HSEC PsN: DIANE
28 

vided by DOS and DOC, I will discuss the effective coordination processes that were 

utilized to respond to these incidents. We would be happy to provide the Committee 

with a more detailed briefing in the appropriate setting at a later date. 

In the DOS incident, which involved a newly identified Microsoft ‘‘zero-day’’ vulnerability, the US–CERT immediately engaged to assist with response efforts as 

soon as the report was received. In collaboration, the DOS and US–CERT coordinated with the National Operations Center (NOC), and other Federal agencies 

throughout the incident response and recovery phase. At the same time, US–CERT 

coordinated daily with the Microsoft Security Response Center for vulnerability 

management, patch remediation and public disclosure coordination. 

Additional technical analysis revealed this vulnerability to be more dangerous and 

pervasive across all Microsoft operating system platforms. Just prior to the public 

release of the Microsoft Security Bulletin (MS06–040), the US–CERT and Microsoft 

conducted a series of briefings with Federal and State operational Incident Response 

and Security Teams, Chief Information Officers, Chief Information Security Officers, 

and critical infrastructure sectors via the Sector Coordinating Committees (SCC) 

and designated Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISAC). 

Following these briefings, the US–CERT and Microsoft jointly released public notifications related to the new vulnerability and the availability of a security patch. 

The US–CERT released a public Technical Cyber Security Alert via the National 

Cyber Alert System. Additionally, we disseminated a Federal Information Notice to 

the Federal community, and a Critical Infrastructure Information Notice to the critical infrastructure SCCs and ISACs. 

Because of the significant risk posed by this vulnerability, DHS released its first 

ever press release focused on cyber security recommending that all users of the 

Microsoft Windows Operating Systems apply the security patch as quickly as possible. This public press release, along with the significant volume of media coverage 

and attention it garnered, led to a highly successful rollout of a security patch. Also 

the US–CERT continued to monitor the Federal Government’s patch status and reported those results on a weekly basis until all agencies reported they had completed their patch deployments. 

In the incident involving the DOC, the US–CERT was notified by the DOC’s Office of the Chief Information Officer and Cyber Incident Response Team (CIRT) in 

accordance with OMB guidance, FISMA, and the US–CERT CONOPS. During this 

response effort, the US–CERT provided on-site assistance at the request of DOC 

CIRT. This enabled on-site collaboration and rapid analysis of the event so it could 

be quickly contained and remediated. In addition, they coordinated their activities 

with the NOC and other Federal agencies throughout the incident response and recovery phase. As a result of this incident the DOC has expanded their response capability to an around-the-clock operation which should greatly aid in their future 

incident detection and response efforts. 

The NCSD continues to conduct outreach to Federal agencies to raise cyber security awareness with operational security teams and senior officials through its Government Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (GFIRST). Moreover, the 

NCSD continues to work with our Federal and private sector stakeholders to identify vulnerabilities and quickly identify suspicious activity by enhancing bi-directional information sharing. The NCSD also continues to provide cyber security training to further increase the number of cyber incident responders to enable agencies 

to quickly identify and contain emerging cyber attacks. 

While significant progress has been made to enhance the network security of Federal departments and agencies, more can and will be done. Based on our ongoing 

programs and initiatives, the NCSD and its US–CERT are poised to continue to 

work towards achieving greater overall cyber security with our Federal, State, local, 

tribal, international, and private sector partners. It is clear from our work to date 

and the continuing evolution of information technology in our society that additional 

advancements will be required to mitigate the growing cyber security risks. Accordingly, we expect continuing dialogue with this Committee as we further understand 

the evolving nature of the cyber security issues. 

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before this Subcommittee today and I 

would be happy to answer any questions you may have at this time. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. 

Before I go to questions, two things first of all, procedurally. 

The committee rules state that witness testimony needs to be in 

48 hours in advance. All the panel members got theirs in advance, 

with the exception of the Department of Homeland Security. I 

would ask that in the future that that testimony is in 48 hours, acVerDate Nov 24 2008 07:50 Jun 15, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\DOCS\110-HRGS\110-26\43562.TXT HSEC PsN: DIANE
29 

cording to committee rules. I understand that these things have to 

be cleared to the White House, so it is not entirely an individual’s 

fault. But timely submission of testimony is important because we 

can’t do business this way without having the testimony ahead of 

time. Okay? 

The other question I have, Assistant Secretary for Cyber Security 

Garcia is not in attendance today. Is there a reason that he is not 

joining us? 

Mr. DIXON. Chairman Langevin, since my direct involvement, at 

the time I was the deputy director for US–CERT, and since this 

evolves around two specific intrusions, it was thought that it would 

be best since I was pretty much heavily involved with both of these 

situations, to be present. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. We look forward to having the assistant secretary before us in the very near future. 

I thank all the witnesses for their testimony. 

I remind each member that he or she will have 5 minutes to 

question the panel. 

I would now recognize myself for 5 minutes. 

I would like to begin, if I could, with Mr. Reid on the question, 

and I just want to a little further explore the issue of the hacker 

penetrations that we discussed in my opening testimony, and that 

you addressed in your statement. 

I talked about the fact that most targeted attacks involve these 

rootkits, which can’t be detected by temporary wrappers. You describe the use of temporary wrappers initially, and then you described another process, but it wasn’t clear that you took everything offline for a long period of time and did a full kernel inspection. 

I would like you to address more on that, as to how you handled 

the penetration once you became aware of it. 

Mr. REID. Sir, I would just like to reinforce in my written testimony there was a little bit more detail than the oral statement. 

What we were dealing with here was two zero-day exponents, for 

want of a better term. So we were in unknown territory and we are 

trying to learn as we are going along. 

Mr. Dixon can probably talk to this better than I can, but my understanding is that typically it takes Microsoft a minimum of 2 

months or longer to issue a security patch. So we knew it was 

going to take quite a long time before we were going to be able to 

fix this particular vulnerability, and we needed something before 

then. So as I indicated in my testimony, we sought the best minds 

out there in the private sector and in government to try and come 

up with a solution. 

The security wrapper was what was recommended, and we came 

up with a protocol for deploying that. We did take the entire system down in East Asia Pacific for about a 3-week period. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Did you do a full system wash, and then re-build? 

Mr. REID. Yes, sir. We rebuilt everything, and we are scanning 

continuously as we are checking these things are. And then we also 

have available to us what we call a forensic-like tool that we developed about 3 years ago. It helps us evaluate the network even closer in a very discrete manner, so that we can tell whether there is 

any lingering signatures. 

30 

So we felt pretty confident that we had a new process in place. 

We went through it very thoroughly. Before we bring a post back 

up on line, as I said we did remote scans from Washington to confirm what they were telling us at post. We found a lot of inconsistencies that they hadn’t done the things they said they had. We 

wouldn’t reconnect them. 

There is a business case here in terms of taking an entire system 

off-line. It does have to be weighed and it is an incredibly tough 

decision to make, but the business of the State Department in part 

is issuing passports, issuing visas. At all our overseas posts, you 

have consular officers. You have visa lines out there with people 

waiting to apply for visas and stuff. If you take the system off-line, 

all of that comes to a screeching halt, with tremendous expense 

and disruption of normal day-to-day business. 

We felt that the risks were worth it, that we had a solution that 

was going to work. As I indicated, since July, we haven’t had any 

more attacks. The Microsoft patch, by the way, did not come out 

until August. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Do you balance the business versus security information? 

Mr. REID. It is a tough decision. I am not saying that we did this. 

This is a decision we take to the CIO in terms of weighing that. 

When do you disconnect a region from the Internet? That is an incredibly disruptive thing to do, obviously, for day-to-day business. 

The State Department kind of got into the connectivity to the 

Internet late in the game. This really occurred under Secretary 

Powell’s watch and was endorsed by Secretary Rice. So we have 

been modernizing our I.T. systems, but the connection to the Internet brings with it inherent risks. There is no doubt about it. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. I am not satisfied that we haven’t erred more on 

the side of protecting national security. I know the conduct of business is obviously important, but I am concerned that there hasn’t 

been a proper balance of weight given to protecting national security. 

Mr. REID. Sir, could I offer to follow up with a written explanation of what that wrapper was, what it entailed and what protections we believe were in place? 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Yes, I think that would be helpful. 

Mr. REID. All right, sir. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. My next question is for Mr. Dixon. FISMA requires each agency to notify US–CERT about incidents affecting 

the information systems. How many incidents have you been notified about in 2006 and 2007? 

Mr. DIXON. Yes, sir. For fiscal year 2006, we had over 23,978 incidents, I believe, somewhere in that ballpark. And then just for 

fiscal year 2007 to date, we are already up to 20,000-plus incidents 

being reported to us. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Mr. Reid, and I will ask GAO to follow up on this 

as well, I mentioned in my opening statement the issue of classified 

versus unclassified networks. Your inspector general reported that 

your agency only 50 percent of your system is inventoried. This 

means that your network topology is incomplete as well. 

Given this unknown, how can you be certain that your classified 

networks aren’t touching your unclassified networks? Can you realVerDate Nov 24 2008 07:50 Jun 15, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00034 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\DOCS\110-HRGS\110-26\43562.TXT HSEC PsN: DIANE
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ly know that hackers have only access to unclassified networks? Do 

you have an idea of how much information was compromised? 

Mr. REID. On the issue of unclassified and classified networks, 

they are separate networks. So we are very confident that there is 

no bleed-over, that the hackers don’t have a route into the classified network by compromising the unclassified system. 

We do our scanning on both systems. We do our scanning on our 

unclassified systems and classified systems. We have seen no activity on our classified systems, nor has the national security community as a whole. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. How is that possible if you haven’t completed the 

topology? 

Mr. REID. I don’t know that we necessarily agree with the I.G. 

My understanding of the I.G. was that they found one system that 

was not reported, and that they concluded from that that they 

couldn’t trust the rest of our inventory. We feel we have a very 

complete inventory, certainly far more than 50 percent of the topology. 

Again, it is our scanning that does that. Our scanning goes out 

and touches 57,000 devices that are out there on our unclassified 

network. We know where they are. We know that there is more 

work to be done on our inventory. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Mr. Wilshusen, would you comment? 

Mr. WILSHUSEN. Right. This is based upon our review of the 

agencies and the I.G.’s FISMA report that they are required to submit. The I.G. noted that one of the State Department’s systems 

could not be located. Due to its methodology and the scope of its 

work, it concluded that the State Department did not have a complete inventory. 

But certainly, one of the things to consider in terms of the separation of classified and unclassified networks is that if there are 

any interconnections between the two, it could raise a significant 

security violation. Not to say that that occurred at State Department, because we have not conducted tests at the department in 

reviewing the security over those two types of networks. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Do you share my concern that even if the information is ‘‘unclassified,’’ that it could very well be sensitive information that later becomes classified that could have been compromised originally? 

Mr. WILSHUSEN. Of course. Sensitive information of various different types, particularly when aggregated together, could raise the 

level of sensitivity to that information. There is a lot of highly sensitive information that the government retains and that you do not 

want out in the public domain and certainly do not want a hacker 

or some other group to have that information. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. I agree. 

The chair now recognizes the ranking member, my partner in 

this effort, the gentleman from Texas, Mr. McCaul, to ask some 

questions. 

Mr. MCCAUL. I thank the chairman. 

I mentioned in my opening statement, really three types of hacking that could occur, and there may be more, but one would be just 

for mischief purposes, say, a teenager hacking in. Another one 

would be espionage to try to get information, steal information, inVerDate Nov 24 2008 07:50 Jun 15, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00035 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\DOCS\110-HRGS\110-26\43562.TXT HSEC PsN: DIANE
32 

tellectual property. And the third would be a direct attack on the 

United States, a direct attack from a rogue nation or a state sponsor of terrorism. I think the last scenario would be the gravest. 

I will ask about the protocol with the military. Why don’t I just 

ask that first? If you can’t answer this in a public forum, I will 

grant you that. Do you have any protocol with the United States 

military in the event there is a perceived threat, a direct attack on 

the United States from a rogue nation or a state-sponsored terrorist? 

Mr. REID. In terms of do we have relationships built up? 

Mr. MCCAUL. A protocol? 

Mr. REID. Certainly. The global network operations joint task 

force that is run by Strategic Command is a big player in the computer network defense community. We interrelate with them all 

the time. We are sharing analytical information back and forth all 

the time. Again, Homeland Security is a key interface for us with 

those relationships. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Getting to the specific intrusions, Mr. Reid had 

one. You talked about one Mr. Jarrell, and I will get to you, Mr. 

Dixon. Can you comment publicly on the source of these intrusions? 

Mr. REID. The chairman indicated that they had their source in 

China, but these are hackers. These are people intruding into our 

systems using a sophisticated method to do it(and e-mail with hidden malicious code. Any hacker is covering their trail. So the fact 

that the last place they were at was in China doesn’t necessarily 

mean that this was a state-sponsored attack. 

The community as a whole, the computer network defense community as a whole, works on this attribution issue very, very hard. 

It is just tough to nail these things down. 

Mr. MCCAUL. So it is difficult to determine the source? 

Mr. REID. Most definitely, the original source. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Mr. Jarrell? 

Mr. JARRELL. Yes, sir. Actually, before we discovered the incident 

on the BIS network, we worked closely with US–CERT, but at the 

same time we try to depend on multiple sources of information to 

be able to derive our intelligence. We work with DOD’s Joint Task 

Force for Global Network Operations, JTFGNO. So they are aware 

of the issues, as well as the Department of Homeland Security, 

US–CERT and the GFIRST. 

After we experienced the incident that we did, and we reported 

to US–CERT, and that is our obligation to report to U.S.–CERT, 

we met with both US–CERT and JTFGNO to share information so 

that while we don’t have a protocol necessarily to deal directly with 

the DOD environment, we wanted to pull and derive information 

from them. That has proven to be useful for us, so that we can gain 

a more broad perspective on the incidents that were occurring, and 

we would be able to benefit from that process and information. 

We are in a situation as well, sir, that we can’t definitely say the 

source of the attack on those BIS computers. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Mr. Dixon, you quoted a very high number of over 

20,000 incidents on the federal government. Is that correct? 

Mr. DIXON. Those incidents include incidents from private-sector 

entities as well as the government. I would say the vast majority 

of those incidents for last year were actually from the private secVerDate Nov 24 2008 07:50 Jun 15, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\DOCS\110-HRGS\110-26\43562.TXT HSEC PsN: DIANE
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tor, so they could range from malicious code to phishing, with the 

issue involving identify theft; malicious Web sites. A majority of 

those things are being reported to us from corporations, as well as 

home users, and are called into the US–CERT. 

Again, the majority of those were last year within the private 

sector. This year, with the advent of reporting personally identifiable information to us, that is where we have seen a large increase 

based on OMB management directives to report those to us within 

1 hour. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Were any of those incidents attempts to hack into 

the computer networks of the United States Congress? 

Mr. DIXON. We have worked incidents with both branches of government. We have worked with the chief information security officers on the House and the Senate side. That is pretty much it. We 

can talk in more detail in a different setting. 

Mr. MCCAUL. I understand. 

My next question is to the GAO. What is your recommendation 

regarding the responsibility of DHS regarding cybersecurity for the 

federal government? Do you see them having a role as a chief information security officer for the federal government? 

Mr. WILSHUSEN. I think that would present some challenges if 

they were to fulfill that role. One, under current law, FISMA, it requires and gives responsibility to the director of the Office of Management and Budget to oversee and coordinate the federal implementation of information security controls, as well as coordinating 

the development of those standards. 

FISMA also assigns specific responsibilities to the heads of agencies, and makes them specifically responsible for safeguarding the 

information assets under their department. Having DHS in particular, and I am not sure which individual in there, but someone 

at the assistant secretary level being able to compel other agencies 

and secretaries of other agencies could be somewhat problematic 

from an organizational placement of that. 

In addition, it would also be appropriate that DHS first assume 

or assure that its own security is effective and that they have 

taken actions to fully and effectively implement an information security program before trying to be responsible for the full federal 

government. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, are we going to have one round of questions? 

Mr. LANGEVIN. If we have time, I am inclined to go for two 

rounds. I know we are expecting a vote soon, but I am inclined to 

go for a second round if our witnesses can stay. 

Mr. MCCAUL. My time has expired. Thanks. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. I thank the gentleman. 

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina, 

Mr. Etheridge, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. ETHERIDGE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me thank you and commend you for holding this hearing. I 

hope this is the first of many because the issue that we are talking 

about is so vast and it is rapidly evolving and continues to evolve. 

I think all of us recognize this is going to be central to what we 

do in the 21st century. One hearing does nothing more than 

34 

scratch the surface of what we need to be about and stay on top 

of. 

Mr. Jarrell, let me ask you a question. Your description of the 

break-in in the Commerce computers is troubling. It is troubling on 

many levels to me. In your testimony, you note that the date and 

duration of illegal access is still unknown, and the extent of information compromised may never be known. 

My question is, how confident are you that the information at 

Commerce is now secure? 

Mr. JARRELL. I am very confident, sir. The reason that we don’t 

know the date or the source of the infection on that one account 

is because of our audit logs and the duration that we retain those 

audit logs. So it is unfortunate that we are unable to pinpoint that 

point of action and activity on the system. 

Mr. ETHERIDGE. Have you changed the protocols on that so you 

will be able to know in the future? 

Mr. JARRELL. We are doing that now, sir. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ETHERIDGE. So I assume that would be one step you have 

taken to improve it. 

Mr. JARRELL. Absolutely. 

Mr. ETHERIDGE. All right. Let me follow that up. For example, 

the incident at BIS was identified by a user accessing his computer 

with a simple password, is my understanding. Numerous guidelines from NSA, DOD and NIST recommend at least two. 

Have you implemented these recommendations for privileged 

personnel now? Why were they not used in the past, I guess, is the 

question I really ought to be asking. 

Mr. JARRELL. We are looking at two-factor authentication as part 

of our new protocol and our new process for access to systems, including any remote access or remote administration of those systems. We are working towards meeting the intent of FISMA and 

the OMB guidance that we are provided. We are in the process of 

doing that now. 

Mr. ETHERIDGE. Do you have a date where you want to have that 

implemented? 

Mr. JARRELL. We are actually working to establish contracts with 

vendors that can provide that kind of technology to the Department 

of Commerce, so that we can deploy that throughout the entire department’s 13 agencies. 

Mr. ETHERIDGE. With the goal for? 

Mr. JARRELL. We are hoping to have that done this fiscal year 

so that the contract is established, and then we would have a rollout schedule into fiscal year 2008. 

Mr. ETHERIDGE. Okay. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. JARRELL. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Wilshusen, is it possible to determine after 

an attack the full extent of the damage? For example, can logs be 

altered to hide the nature of the attack? 

Mr. WILSHUSEN. Yes, they can. It is a very difficult process to go 

through and try to determine the extent and the amount of damage 

that could occur from such an attack, particularly if the attackers 

have the ability and the access to delete audit logs and other system logs. 

35 

In addition, if they are adequately masquerading their tracks, it 

makes it more difficult, as we have already discussed here, determine the ultimate source of the attack. So it can be difficult to do 

that. 

Mr. ETHERIDGE. I raise that question because I think as we deal 

with this, we need to all get a pretty good grasp of the challenge 

we are facing as we put more and more data at risk. That is really 

what we are doing. 

Mr. WILSHUSEN. Right. And also the extent to which the organization is able to determine the extent of the damage also depends 

upon how well that organization is logging and monitoring its networks on an ongoing basis. So that also has an impact on how prepared an agency is in order to identify and detect these types of 

intrusions. 

Mr. ETHERIDGE. Let me ask you one additional question, before 

I go to Mr. Dixon. It seems to me we need to do a much better job 

of letting our personnel know how vulnerable we are and how important it is to have security on the station they are working on. 

Mr. WILSHUSEN. That is absolutely correct. Indeed, one of the 

best defenses is to have security in depth. That means to have multiple layers of security from various different points of vulnerability, to include assuring that users and agency personnel are 

fully aware of the risk and their responsibilities in mitigating those 

risks and practicing safe computing. 

Mr. ETHERIDGE. Thank you. 

Mr. Dixon, how does the Department of Homeland Security learn 

of instances such as those at Commerce? And how confident are 

you in the department’s ability to analyze and prevent such 

incidences? 

Number two, is it possible to know the extent of our vulnerability 

and what can we do to increase our knowledge and reduce the 

threat? 

Mr. DIXON. In both instances, we were notified directly by their 

operational security teams and made aware of the incidents. They 

also shared with us the technical details and the information. As 

we do with pretty much all incidents that are reported to us, offer 

our assistance to help out any way we can. If it is related to a vulnerability, especially a brand new vulnerability, we will work with 

the affected vendor to, one, try to see when can it be fixed, and 

what are the options to mitigate it. 

We also communicate with the government performance and response teams which has over 400 members from all the various 

operational security teams across the federal government and state 

and local governments. We have a program called Einstein that basically, we often get asked the question, who is affected or how bad 

is it across the U.S. government. Sometimes this question comes 

from the private sector. Sometimes it is from other agencies. 

The way it used to work is we would have to call each and every 

operational security team, leverage GFIRST, make the request— 

can you let us know whether you have seen this type of malicious 

activity. They would then, and it would take a couple of days to actually go through logs of their security infrastructure to make that 

determination if they were seeing it or not seeing it, report that 

back, and then we can report back to everybody. 

36 

Mr. ETHERIDGE. Let me interrupt—and I know I am running out 

of time, Mr. Chairman. I am over. 

What is your budget? 

Mr. DIXON. It is $97 million. 

Mr. ETHERIDGE. Do you do preemptive work, rather than just reactive? 

Mr. DIXON. Yes, sir. US–CERT is the operational team and then 

we have proactive programs across the National Cyber Security Division, like software assurance. 

Mr. ETHERIDGE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You have indulged 

my going over and I appreciate that. Thank you. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. I thank the gentleman. 

The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Green, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you and the ranking member for hosting this hearing. I will be terse. 

Let’s start with the rootkit program. Mr. Dixon, this technology, 

is this something that is in the hands of your typical hacker or person who desires to perpetrate mischief? 

Mr. DIXON. Yes, sir. Many types of rootkits are available for 

download from the Internet. They are on varying levels of skills 

that can be used, depending on the level of how they go about social engineering it, whether they are doing targeted e-mails to specific individuals. That tends to increase the level of sophistication 

because they have to have some knowledge of that organization. 

But a lot of these things are readily available on the Internet that 

can be downloaded and pushed out. 

Mr. GREEN. Let’s go next to the zero-day exploit. If we have such 

an occurrence, is it true that the communication, the means by 

which you communicate the actual penetration is thus far confined 

to the department that had the zero-day exploit? Is this true? 

Mr. DIXON. When you say was it combined, actually with that 

particular situation with the zero-day vulnerability, we were actually trying to determine were there other victims or other folks affected, and was it in fact targeted. We actually worked with probably about five other organizations to determine, are you seeing activity characteristic of this. At the same time, we were working 

with the vendor. They also have their network of contacts. We were 

trying to see if there was any other active exploitation. 

Mr. GREEN. Let me intercede and ask, is there a protocol that requires you to share this information with other agencies that have 

not suffered the exploit? 

Mr. DIXON. We have information sharing guidance within our 

US–CERT concept of operations, which was vetted to an interagency process. So basically, again if this was being more actively 

exploited when we talked to our partners within the Department 

of Defense and other agencies, we would have quickly went public 

with this. We put basically Microsoft on notice. 

However, we did not find that, and found it to be targeted, and 

we did not want to run the risk of somebody actually developing 

tools to take advantage of it. In that particular instance, it was 

what was called ‘‘wormable,’’ meaning an automated script or program could have taken advantage of that vulnerability that afVerDate Nov 24 2008 07:50 Jun 15, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\DOCS\110-HRGS\110-26\43562.TXT HSEC PsN: DIANE
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fected all Microsoft operating systems, which is why we exercised 

extra caution and sensitivity around that particular vulnerability. 

Mr. GREEN. Final question. Let’s talk about the I.P. number. 

This is the equivalent of a fingerprint for a computer, generally 

speaking. It gives you the location. It doesn’t necessarily take you 

right to the source, but at least you get in the area, the geography 

of the source. Is this a fair statement? 

Mr. DIXON. An I.P. address does give where the traffic might be 

originating from. However, a lot of organizations and corporate networks, for instance, use what is called dynamic I.P. addressing, 

meaning that they might get a different I.P. address every time 

they boot up their machine or log on on a different day. 

Also, a lot of attackers tend to hide where they are coming from, 

so there are various points, because the Internet is global. So they 

can make it appear to be coming from a different source than 

where it really is coming from. It is very easy to hide their tracks. 

Mr. GREEN. All right. Thank you. That was what I wanted to get 

to, the ability to mask the location by the variations of I.P.s. But 

is it also possible to defeat the technology in some other way? As 

far as throwing persons who are trying to ascertain where you are 

off track? 

Mr. DIXON. Yes, sir. There are a number of ways to hide where 

you are coming from. Some actually might modify the I.P. address 

to do what is called modifying the traffic, and put in there a bad 

I.P. address. So it is not that difficult. There are actually tools out 

there that you can download from the Internet to facilitate making 

that happen. There are tools out there called ‘‘onion routing,’’ which 

basically makes you pretty anonymous on the Web and from where 

you are coming from. So there is a lot of capability there to hide 

your tracks. 

Mr. GREEN. Perhaps this is something that is not at your level 

to respond to, but is there a way, and I beg that you would just 

consider the question, is there a way for Congress to help you with 

all of these various Internet providers who are continually giving 

out information that is antithetical to our best interests. 

Mr. DIXON. We have a process, and a great working relationship 

with many of the Internet service providers. To give an example, 

when folks had come under attack from denial of service attacks, 

they have been effective and instrumental in actually helping what 

we call ‘‘black holing’’ the traffic, making that traffic disappear. 

Where that is really important is folks that are running electronic com making that traffic disappear. Where that is really important is folks that are running electronic commerce sites, or critical Web services. We have what is called the Internet Disruption 

Working Group, and we work very closely with the North American 

Network Operators Group. 

The operational relationships that we have developed with those 

organizations have really been essential on tackling some of the 

issues that we are facing. 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. 

We have two votes on, and then we have the second panel coming up. We brought you all the way up here, and I would like to 

make productive use of the time. Would the panel be willing to stay 

38 

while we have two votes? We will come back and we have one more 

brief round of questions, and then go to panel two. I appreciate 

that. 

The committee stands in recess. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. LANGEVIN. The meeting will come to order. I thank the witnesses for staying. We will try to wrap this up as expeditiously as 

possible. 

I would like to turn just if I could to Mr. Jarrell for my initial 

question, because I want to give you the opportunity to respond to 

something I brought up in my opening statement. That is with respect to what your department did with respect to its administrative policies after the cyber attack had occurred. If you want to 

take a minute to respond to that? 

Mr. JARRELL. Absolutely. As we put controls in place to identify 

infected computers on the BIS network, we removed those computers from access. We pulled the drives and we quarantined those 

drives. As a result, we did not reintroduce those to our system. 

They were quarantined. They remain in quarantine today for any 

potential forensics evidence needed to support any initiatives. 

So as a result, we did not reintroduce those infected drives, but 

also we didn’t trust the data that was stored on those drives. As 

a result, we did not reintroduce the information on to the network 

on the off-chance that it may compromise issues. So we worked 

from clean systems. 

In addition, sir, with regard to authentication changes, we suspended all of our BIS accounts because we believe they were suspect, so we expired those accounts immediately and required that 

all of our users reauthenticate themselves, and we continue to do 

that. We went from a 90-day process for user account lifespan to 

now 30 days. So we are significantly more aggressive in making 

sure that those accounts are being used by proper authorized personnel. 

In addition to that, we added a second layer of control by requiring that anyone with administrative privilege on that network requires a second level of authentication to the system. It increases 

our security significantly, we believe. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. I appreciate you addressing this for the record. 

Thank you. Thank you for clarifying. 

Mr. Reid and Mr. Jarrell, both of your agencies received F’s on 

FISMA. Let’s just say for exploration purposes, pretend that you 

both received A-pluses for this year. Would that, in your opinion, 

have stopped the attacks from occurring? If everything possible 

were done with respect to security in terms of within our capability 

to do it today, would that have stopped the attacks? 

Mr. REID. Mr. Chairman, in my opinion, no. The socially engineered e-mail would have bypassed any CAA system, and all of our 

systems have been certified and accredited. We certainly knew 

about them, whether they were part of a formal inventory or not. 

I think FISMA I believe has been in existence for 5 years now. 

It is a great baseline law that we clearly have more work to do 

with at State to be able to achieve its objectives. But there are 

other things going on that it is not measuring, and we feel that 

that is an aspect of FISMA that doesn’t quite tell the whole story. 

39 

For instance, our ability to detect and respond to the intrusion, 

nowhere is that measured in FISMA, and yet I have some terrific 

capability that is there to do just that. So we feel that we have a 

great capability for detecting these things. 

Congressman McCaul, you talked about espionage, terrorism, 

and other kinds of things. Well, there is a criminal threat out there 

also that is growing dramatically in terms of threat. 

We have to be able to see these things as they come into our systems, and be able to detect them, be able to respond to them, be 

able to mitigate them. My belief is that FISMA doesn’t measure 

those kinds of things very well. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Mr. Jarrell? 

Mr. JARRELL. We focus a significant amount of attention on 

FISMA compliance through certification, accreditation, and other 

variables. Anytime that we can have management and our executive staff’s attention on the security of our infrastructure and our 

data, it is a good thing, because we need more eyes on the ball. 

That said, a system that has been graded as an A with full 

FISMA compliance and understand that the certification and accreditation process that we go through on a routine basis is a snapshot in time, meaning that that snapshot in time looks at the system as it was configured at that given time. From the next day forward, any change or the introduction of new technology or even a 

new user on that system, changes the variable you looked at the 

day before. 

Again, FISMA is a great tool. It is a great asset to us to be able 

to look at the controls that we put in place. Incident response, zeroday vulnerabilities, those kinds of things change the process and 

the way that we have to look at this issue. So having FISMA is 

a great tool. Having the ability to put more technology in place so 

that we can secure that system is also as great an issue. It seems 

that there needs to be more of a balance between FISMA and introduction of this new technology. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Mr. Wilshusen, let me ask you, what does it say 

about our information security laws? Somebody can get the highest 

score possible on our scale, but still be vulnerable to being hacked 

or losing critical information. 

Mr. WILSHUSEN. I think it goes and speaks to how we measure 

the effectiveness of security at federal agencies. Clearly, the performance measures that OMB has established and its reporting instructions for federal agencies to report under FISMA, and the reporting requirement under FISMA, focus on the performance of certain control activities. Those measures do not focus on the effectiveness of those activities. 

So I kind of would mirror what Mr. Jarrell has indicated, that 

just performing certain activities does not necessarily mean that 

they are being performed effectively. And certainly with what Mr. 

Jarrell indicated about certified and accredited systems, just because a system is certified and accredited does not make it necessarily secure, for some of the reasons that Mr. Jarrell cited. 

Certainly, I agree that the law as written has been very, very 

positive in improving security within the federal government, because it has raised the level of attention to information security 

40 

and assigned specific responsibilities to key officials in the government and at federal agencies. 

It also is based upon key and important information security 

practices and processes. Those are valid(the ability to assess your 

risk, develop policies and procedures that are risk-based, that costeffectively reduce those risks, assuring that your staff and contractors are appropriately trained and are made aware of the risk that 

they need to protect against; conducting security testing and evaluation to assess the effectiveness of your controls, and then identifying vulnerabilities and taking effective and immediate remedial 

actions to correct those vulnerabilities. 

Those are the requirements of FISMA, among others, and those 

are valid today, as they were 4 1/2 years ago when it was passed. 

The dichotomy has kind of arranged where receiving the higher 

grade or doing a good job under the performance measures is more 

an indication of what the measures we are using to assess security 

implementation. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. We have a lot of work to do. Thank you. 

I will recognize now the ranking member, the gentleman from 

Texas, Mr. McCaul, for the purpose of asking questions. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I asked the question in the last round about the role of DHS as 

a chief information security officer for the federal government. If I 

am not recounting this correctly, let me know, Mr. Wilshusen, but 

your response was that until DHS can really get its own act together, you wouldn’t recommend that. Is that a fair assessment? If 

not, why don’t you answer that? 

Mr. WILSHUSEN. I did not use those terms exactly. 

Mr. MCCAUL. I know. I am paraphrasing. 

[Laughter.] 

I did say ‘‘paraphrase.’’ 

Mr. WILSHUSEN. Okay. I think that is part of it. I also think just 

the organizational placement of DHS versus perhaps someone in 

maybe the office of the president. Certainly, DHS has a very important role to play in the analysis and warning capability, and because it is ideally suited for collecting and reporting all of the security incidents within the federal government, and being able to 

analyze that and provide that service to other federal agencies, as 

well as to organizations outside of the federal government. 

I would also kind of like to introduce Dave Powner here, who has 

been doing some work in that space. 

Mr. POWNER. One other factor to consider, if you look at their 

roles and responsibilities, and we have done work for this committee over the years looking at DHS and the National Cyber Security Division roles and responsibilities in furthering private-sector 

security and working with the 17 sectors. 

There is a lot of work to do. We talk a lot about the US–CERT 

capabilities, and they are doing some good things through their 

Einstein project. We need to expand those capabilities. We need to 

do a lot more with threat identification, coming up with national 

threat assessments, partnering with the private sector. 

So one factor to consider, too, is given all those responsibilities 

and the long road ahead, if you levy that requirement on an assistVerDate Nov 24 2008 07:50 Jun 15, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\DOCS\110-HRGS\110-26\43562.TXT HSEC PsN: DIANE
41 

ant secretary, you are really overburdening them. I don’t think it 

is the time right now to do that. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Mr. Dixon, do you have any comment on that? 

Mr. DIXON. Right now, the CIO is responsible for the protection 

of the data within their networks, as well as their information 

technology assets. I think, again with FISMA and just to touch on 

the certification and accreditation process, part of FISMA also includes ongoing vulnerability assessments, penetration testing, and 

really managing risk within your environments. 

Not just doing FISMA for the sake of reporting, but actually 

leveraging it as a tool in your toolkit to defend your networks, to 

raise awareness. When you have operational issues, the certification and accreditation information lets you know how many systems in critical applications do you have across your enterprise. It 

helps you to quickly assess how bad is it in my environment when 

we do have a malicious event. 

Back to your question, I think we have a significant mission to 

date, being a facilitator and helping organizations tackle the issues. 

We were just with the CIO council yesterday for all the departments. We provide them quarterly reports of incident trends within 

their department. We do that quarterly and annually, as well as 

we take a look at here is how you sit from the rest of the government, based on reporting coming into us, showing the trends and 

things that are coming up; here are some potential recommendations to maybe help you tackle some of these issues that you are 

facing. 

So again, with the amount of information that we are getting not 

only from government, from the private sector, and being able to 

provide that back to key decision makers to prioritize where they 

focus their efforts is an effective approach. 

Mr. MCCAUL. So am I correct in saying you are actually in agreement on this, that the role of coordinator and point of contact is 

the preferred role for the Department of Homeland Security on 

this? 

Mr. DIXON. I think the current role that we are playing today is 

effective, and our capability is continuing to mature, and there is 

still a lot to be done. I think that the authorities of the CIOs, the 

effective person that knows the business applications within their 

environment, for some outside entity to be able to try to get a handle on their line of business, whether it is in the tax collection business or whether it issuing Social Security numbers, passports or 

visas—that is a pretty tall order to take on. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Another question. I think Mr. Reid talked about 

when you had the intrusion, you consulted with Microsoft for a 

patch. Could you expand on this, or Mr. Dixon, I would be interested in this from your vantage point, in terms of the coordination 

of the department with the private sector in securing these network systems. I would go ahead and start with you, Mr. Dixon. 

Mr. DIXON. I guess I am not following the exact question. Can 

you clarify? 

Mr. MCCAUL. In terms of coordination with the private sector, I 

mean, the private sector has the answers, in my view. They are on 

the cutting edge, not the federal government. What role have you 

42 

played or what role has the department played, or do we need to 

play a greater role in coordinating with the private sector? 

Mr. DIXON. The private sector is an essential partner in a lot of 

the issues that we are facing today, whether it is an operating system vendor. If we come across activity based on our experience, if 

we need to get security definitions or any virus signatures pushed 

out there based on these types of incidents, how do you get it out 

to the broadest audience? The way to do that is to work with those 

security vendors, get them the information. 

Sometimes we do it in a sensitive way. Folks don’t realize it. We 

pass to them, here is what we are seeing. They will incorporate it 

into their products so that it will not only clean or quarantine or 

prevent further victims. Again, we take operational information we 

get on a routine basis, get it to the information security folks to 

help protect a larger enterprise, because again they are the ones 

that are out on the frontlines. They are the ones that have the 

products to get across to corporations, infrastructure operators, as 

well as government agencies. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Mr. Reid, do you have any comment? 

Mr. REID. I was just going to say, we look to DHS for that kind 

of support and help. They have the best relationships with Microsoft. We are up to our eyeballs in things to do anyhow. About the 

most clout we could have put forward would have been our CIO, 

possibly the under secretary for management. The reality is they 

already have established relationships with Microsoft. This is 

something that has to be dealt with as quickly as possible, and 

they were in the best position to do it. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Yes, go ahead. 

Mr. DIXON. To further that, we are partnered, obviously. Under 

our assistant secretary, you have the national communications system, and within that they have the national coordinating center, 

which is made up of a lot of the major Internet service providers 

and telecommunication providers. We also have direct ties with a 

lot of the technical vendors out there, the I.T. vendors. 

We are looking to further enhance and bring more of those folks 

into the fold because when we are dealing with some of these 

issues, and again with some of these zero-days, we don’t have the 

capacity or the expertise to really know is this something new, how 

bad is it. We have work with those that actually develop that software. So we are trying to bring those more into the fold to help us 

in that major event, and also to figure out how can we quickly mitigate it. 

I think the partnership with the recent standard configurations, 

one is XP and VISTA, that are being promulgated in partnership 

with OMB, NIST, NSA, and ourselves and the Air Force, is really 

going to go a long ways to improving the security posture of a lot 

of the agencies, getting to minimum baseline security standards. 

Again, that was through partnerships and working with vendors. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. The gentleman from California, Mr. Lungren, is 

recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I wish I 

had been able to be here, but three different things at once is difficult. I will master that if I keep working at it. 

43 

Let me ask a more general question of all of you there. That is 

this, and we see this in the private sector, but I would like your 

observation about the federal system. 

Cybersecurity is an important issue that is not always so obvious 

to the many people that are involved in an enterprise. You can see 

the various physical structures that we have to stop trucks from 

ramming in here and so forth, and everyone can recognize that. It 

is easy to tell your employees, if you see something suspicious that 

relates to that, do something about it. 

But my suspicion is that it is much more difficult to get us 

trained to understand this in the cyber world from the top to the 

bottom. One of the things I ask CEOs in the private sector is, how 

seriously do you consider the issue of cybersecurity? What kind of 

heft do you put behind those elements of your corporation that are 

dealing with that? 

And so I guess my question to all of you is, from your perspective, what is the level of concern that we have been able to relate 

to the employee base at large with respect to cybersecurity, number 

one. 

Number two, what more do we need to do to embed that in the 

experience of our people? 

And third, and perhaps as importantly, how seriously do the top 

people in the departments of the federal government take this, and 

what kind of a priority have they placed on it? 

I would love to have observations from all of you. 

Mr. WILSHUSEN. I guess I will go ahead and start. 

One, I think the level of attention to information security and cybersecurity issues is definitely increasing throughout the federal 

government. In part, that is due to the requirements specified by 

FISMA, but also due to the data theft that occurred last year at 

the Veterans Affairs. It was that incident that affected so many individuals, or potentially could have affected so many individuals 

that I think it really opened up the eyes of many in the federal government throughout all the federal agencies. 

During hearings that were held in response to that incident, it 

was estimated that it could potentially cause between $30 to maybe 

$50 or $100 per veterans whose information was potentially lost. 

When you start multiplying that by 26.5 million, that ends up to 

be a very large amount. So I think individuals and agencies started 

to realize, they, this is very important and it does have costs, not 

only in terms of monetary costs, but the effect on veterans and citizens if the federal government loses their information. 

Subsequent to that, we noticed an up-tick in the number of incidents that have been reported, particularly at VA. So that is not 

to say there are more incidents, but the staff and agencies are 

more attuned to the need to report on those particular incidents. 

So I think the level of attention is increasing, in part due to those 

factors. 

Mr. REID. I certainly agree. There is a lot more attention within 

the State Department to this issue, not only because of our own exploits, but because of the trends across government as a whole. 

Secretary Rice is a strong supporter of our initiatives in cybersecurity. 

44 

On a day-to-day basis, however, that function falls to the under 

secretary for management. One of the things she did was to last 

year reach out and bring in a new CIO at State. We have had some 

very dramatic changes and directions that are positive for the department. 

He, in turn, reached out to an A-plus organization and brought 

on board a new chief information security officer, who is my colleague, John Straford, who joined me here today. 

Congressman you do point to the weakest link in everything we 

have been talking about here, and it is the human dynamic. It gets 

right down to the individual, and what kind of damage can they 

cause intentionally or unintentionally. 

So we, I am sure like other agencies, we have programs in place 

to try and make our employees aware, to educate those that need 

further education in terms of what their roles and responsibilities 

are in the I.T. world. We have a sanction program for monitoring 

their behavior on the computer and taking action if they exceed 

their authorities and things. 

So we are trying a variety of things, but at the end of the day, 

it is that human factor that is very, very difficult to control. 

Mr. JARRELL. I hope that some part of our I.T. security program 

remains invisible to the user. There are a variety of different 

things that I mean by that. We have intrusion detection and intrusion prevention systems that sit on our network. The user does not 

interact with them. And those are significant tools to ensuring the 

security part of our network. So we continue to maintain those 

kinds of issues. 

There is always the FISMA variable. There is always the user 

awareness and the role-based training requirements that we impose on our staff when they have general access to a system, versus 

someone who has administrative authority to our systems, and 

there is a significant change in that authority that is given to that 

account. 

So some things we want to keep behind the scenes; some things 

we are going to bring to the forefront. We want our users to engage 

us when they access our system by signing rules of behavior that 

talk about how they should and how they should not act on our 

networks, what they can and what they cannot do. We believe that 

those are good steps towards educating our users and keeping security at the forefront of all of the things that we are trying to deal 

with. 

Our CIOs have made I.T. security a priority because of FISMA 

compliance, because of report card grades, but more importantly 

because of the security of our data and the infrastructure that we 

prepare to support and carry out our mission goals. Things like PII, 

personally identifiable information, get our department’s highest 

level of attention, where we report weekly on those issues, so that 

our executive staff is fully aware and makes sure that our bureau 

agency heads are fully accountable for those issues. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. I thank the gentleman. 

I want to thank the panel for their testimony here today. It has 

been very helpful and informative. We look forward to having you 

back again and continuing to work on this issue together. 

45 

Thank you very much. The panel is dismissed at this point, and 

I call up the second panel. 

I want to welcome the second panel of witnesses. 

Our first witness, Mr. Aaron Turner, is the cybersecurity strategist for the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratories. 

In his role, Mr. Turner applies his experience in information security to collaborate with control systems experts, energy management engineers, and homeland security law enforcement officials to 

develop solutions to the cyber threats that our critical infrastructure is currently facing. 

Before joining INL, Mr. Turner worked in several of Microsoft’s 

security divisions for 7 years, including as a senior security strategist within the security technology unit, as well as the security residence manager for the Microsoft sales, marketing and service 

group, where he led the development of Microsoft’s information security curriculum for over 22,000 of Microsoft’s field staff. 

Our second witness, Mr. Ken Silva, is the chief security officer 

for VeriSign. As VeriSign’s chief security officer and vice president 

for networking and information security, Mr. Silva oversees the 

mission-critical infrastructure for all network security and production I.T. services for VeriSign. In this role, he oversees the missioncritical network infrastructure for VeriSign’s three core business 

units: security services, registry services, and telecommunications 

services. 

Mr. Silva’s responsibilities include oversight of the technical and 

network security, the definitive database of over 27 million Web 

addresses and dot-coms and dot-nets, the world’s most recognizable 

top-level domains. Responding to over 14 billion DNS lookups daily, 

the platform includes the critical infrastructure for the 13 globally 

deployed, global top-level domain-name servers answering domainname system requests for all dot-com and dot-net domains and the 

A-route server. The Internet’s ‘‘dot’’ is the hierarchical top of the 

Internet’s route server system and is the most heavily utilized domain-name server. 

Additionally, Mr. Silva coordinates the security oversight of 

VeriSign’s public key infrastructure, security systems that authenticate over 500,000 merchants on the Web in VeriSign’s payment 

gateways that handle 25 percent of all the e-commerce online 

transactions in North America. 

I want to welcome both of you here today. 

Without objection, the witnesses’ full statements will be inserted 

into the record. I would like to ask each witness now to summarize 

their statement for 5 minutes, beginning with Mr. Turner. 

Welcome, gentlemen. 

STATEMENT OF AARON TURNER, CYBERSECURITY 

STRATEGIST, NATIONAL AND HOMELAND SECURITY, IDAHO 

NATIONAL LABORATORY 

Mr. TURNER. Good afternoon. Chairman Langevin, Ranking 

Member McCaul and distinguished members of the Homeland Security Committee, thank you for this opportunity to address you 

today. 

To introduce myself, my name is Aaron Turner. I have been an 

information security practitioner since 1994. The vast majority of 

46 

my experience was gained in responding to information security incidents in 20 countries around the world. Based on that experience, 

I have been invited to participate in several global information security efforts. In 7 years working in Microsoft’s security divisions, 

I had the opportunity to participate in global information security 

improvement programs. 

When I found out about the Idaho National Laboratory’s critical 

infrastructure protection programs, I was immediately interested 

in working with the INL’s talented group of control systems experts. I joined the lab in September of 2006. I continue to be impressed by the INL’s unique facilities that allow large-scale testing 

and research. These programs that INL conducts are funded 

through national-level programs sponsored by the Departments of 

Energy, Homeland Security, and Defense. 

I would like to focus my remarks on historical lessons that we 

have learned from complex systems that rely on technology, and 

how an over-reliance on technology can lead to system imbalance 

and subsequent corrections. The quality of life that we enjoy today 

is built upon the successful implementation of technology. Our society is what it is because of improvements in efficiency and productivity that technology brings us. 

But when we implement technology for the sake of efficiency, 

without regard for vulnerabilities, the consequences can be significant. The first historical example that I would like to share is 

based on the financial markets of the early 20th century. Facilitated by the widespread use of technology such as the telephone 

and ticker-tape, it was the first time that we could create a truly 

national financial market. But these communications technologies 

did not necessarily assure equal access to information. The result 

of the use of communications technologies without a level playing 

field was the system correction of 1929. 

Another example of large-scale system corrections are the Internet worm incidents of Slammer and Blaster in 2003. In the years 

preceding, there were widespread connections of Internet systems 

to each other. Without sufficient security controls for those systems, it resulted in an overall Internet system that was imbalanced, where a few individuals were able to impact millions of 

Internet-connected systems. 

There is an important system vulnerability pattern that we need 

to recognize based upon these two historical examples. Usually, the 

system vulnerabilities always begin with small-scale exploits. 

Where exploit capability increases, criminals begin to extort system 

owners or take advantage of them economically in taking the systems hostage. As the underground hacking or attacker community 

takes notice of the extortions, they begin to build automated vulnerability tools that are released. This results in non-experts being 

able to create vulnerabilities on a wide scale for widespread system 

compromise. 

So as we take a look at those two historical examples, where are 

we today with regards to control systems security? First, we should 

note that control systems are the technological components that 

automate the services that we rely on such as electricity, potable 

water, petroleum refining, et cetera. It is important to note that 

most of our nation’s critical infrastructure is privately owned, and 

47 

infrastructure owners are subject to market forces and resource 

constraints as a result. 

These pressures have resulted in reduction of human operators 

which oversee these control systems, and an increase in the number of these systems that are connected to networks. Looking at the 

research that INL has conducted over the last several years in this 

area, we have gone out and worked with vendors of technology and 

private asset owners to conduct control system security assessments that have been funded by DOE and DHS. That research is 

important because from those assessments, we have been able to 

find and understand vulnerabilities in those systems. In the field 

assessments that INL has conducted, we have discovered high-impact vulnerabilities exploitable by low-skill-level attackers. 

Comparing the control system security situation to the vulnerability pattern I mentioned previously, where are we? In May of 

2006, there was an extortion scheme perpetrated against infrastructure owners. In December of 2006, there was a release of an 

automated control system vulnerability tool set. Now, compared to 

other technology sectors, where are we with regard to control system security? 

We see a fragmented market with inconsistent responses by technology vendors and infrastructure owners. Control system security 

is lagging behind other technology sectors by years in the approach 

to the problem. INL’s recommendation? We need to continue to 

prioritize and expediently address our nation’s control system security issues. The use of technology in control systems has improved 

efficiency without the corresponding improvements in the ability to 

secure these newly connected systems. 

For those of us working in this area, the path is clear. We must 

continue to maximize cooperation among infrastructure owners and 

technology vendors, and understand and improve control system security across the entire life-cycle of this necessary and critical technology. While we cannot reduce the risks, we must work collaboratively to reduce the impact of the occurrences. 

Thank you very much. 

[The statement of Mr. Turner follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF AARON R. TURNER

Chairman Langevin, Ranking Member McCaul and distinguished members of the 

Homeland Security Subcommittee: 

I am Aaron Turner, Cybersecurity Strategist for the Department of Energy’s 

Idaho National Laboratory (INL). In my role, I apply my experience in information 

security to collaborate with control systems experts, industry engineers and homeland security/law enforcement officials to develop solutions to the cyber threats that 

our critical infrastructure is currently facing. Before joining INL, I worked in several of Microsoft?s security divisions for seven years—including as a Senior Security 

Strategist within the Security Technology Unit as well as the Security Readiness 

Manager for Microsoft?s Sales, Marketing and Services Group where I led the development of Microsoft?s information security curriculum for over 22,000 of Microsoft’s 

field staff. I have been an information security practitioner since 1994, designing security solutions and responding to incidents in 20 countries around the world. 

INL has a dedicated critical infrastructure protection research effort focused on 

control system security and technology risks. The U.S. government, recognizing the 

need to better understand the risk posed by the challenges that come with greater 

reliance on technology, has supported research and testing through voluntary partnerships among asset owners and operators, system vendors and the federal government. This effort includes extensive security assessments, testing security enhanceVerDate Nov 24 2008 07:50 Jun 15, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00051 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\DOCS\110-HRGS\110-26\43562.TXT HSEC PsN: DIANE
48 

ments, developing risk measurement and mitigation tools, and providing security 

training to strengthen defenses. 

We participate in multi-year programs with a team of talented people including 

other national labs, academia and industry, based on their best-in-class core competencies and the needs of the program. This effort is funded by the Department 

of Homeland Security (Control System Security Program), the Department of Energy (National SCADA Test Bed or NSTB) and the Department of Defense. INL has 

also worked directly with critical infrastructure asset owners to assist companies 

and organizations with customized security services. 

The development of our nation’s society and economy has been based upon our 

successful use of technology to improve efficiency and productivity—resulting in the 

quality of life that many U.S. citizens enjoy today. The implementation of technology-reliant systems has resulted in the creation of some of the most complex systems mankind has ever engineered. Key examples of these systems and their complexity include our nation’s financial markets, telecommunications systems, and the 

national electric grid. 

History provides us with consistent lessons about complex systems and the way 

that they can impact our society and economy when they become unstable or are 

subject to critical vulnerabilities. There are two historical examples that we can 

focus on to learn important lessons about system complexity, security vulnerabilities 

in those systems, and the effects of having to respond to threats to those systems 

in an efficient and effective manner—specifically, the events surrounding the 1929 

financial markets crisis and the world-wide Internet worm events of 2003. 

In order for complex systems to be efficient, they require balance. When they are 

out of balance is when they are most vulnerable, and instability can cause loss of 

confidence in the systems themselves. In financial markets, the term ‘‘correction’’ 

has been adopted to describe how an unstable situation regains its balance. Such 

was the case in 1929 when the introduction of technologies, such as the telephone 

and stock ticker, allowed for the creation of a truly national financial market. These 

technologies were used to assure convenient communication of information between 

individuals on a scale that had not been available previously. Unfortunately, the 

convenience of communicating information did not necessarily ensure the consistency or ethics of communication between investors. This resulted in a situation 

where technology facilitated the creation of a large-scale system, but a relatively 

small amount of people capitalized on the manipulation or control of information. 

The financial system rapidly went out of balance and this necessitated a large-scale 

correction. 

Since 1929, our nation has worked to implement controls that will keep our financial markets balanced and efficient, and as a society we have assigned clear responsibility for enforcing rules to assure a balanced and sustainable financial system. 

Unfortunately, the maturity found in financial market controls is not present in the 

area of control systems security. 

Just as in the events leading up to the financial crisis of 1929, there were similar 

indications of an upcoming service disruption in the years preceding the Internet 

worm incidents of 2003. The wide-scale implementation of technology resulted in the 

largest computer network that had ever been created. The ubiquity of Internet 

connectivity motivated many governments, private entities, and individuals to connect their computers to the network to take advantage of the new communication 

opportunities. This full-speed-ahead approach to the Internet was undertaken without any coordinated oversight or planning, and it was assumed that its use involved 

relatively few risks. 

Previous to 2003 there was relatively little attention given to securing components 

connected to the Internet. Most of the efforts of security professionals were directed 

at securing the core network services that the Internet relied on and not the distributed components that were connected to the network, which resulted in systems 

that were significantly out-of-balance that impacted computer users that were connected to the Internet. The first event was the SQL Slammer Worm that compromised hundreds of thousands of computers and generated enough network traffic 

to interrupt Internet connectivity for most of the world?s computer users. The second event of 2003 was the Blaster Worm that infected millions of computer systems 

worldwide and, again, interrupted Internet service on a global scale. 

The impacts of the 2003 events provide examples of how technology has already 

become a core part of the services that we rely on. When the Slammer worm was 

coursing through the Internet, Bank of America?s debit and credit card operations 

were impacted, denying customers the opportunity to make any transactions using 

their bank cards. These incidents signaled a change in the way that individuals can 

and do exploit system instability. While the problems with market fluctuations in 

49 

1929 resulted from thousands of people interacting with the system, the Slammer 

and Blaster worms were created by a small number of individuals. 

The correction that resulted in the case of the 2003 incidents was a significant 

shift in the resources dedicated to computer and Internet security. Instead of focusing on securing just the core services, the owners of the connected components 

began dedicating resources to secure their own systems. Within months, technology 

vendors began implementing processes and technologies to enable systems to be 

more resilient to internet-based attacks. I look back at my participation in the design and implementation of improved technology updating services while at Microsoft and still remember the enormous challenge that we faced in the days following 

Slammer and Blaster. The problem of creating a system that provides universal access to updates while still allowing system owners the flexibility they need to operate predictably creates a paradox that is yet to be resolved today. Looking across 

the technology industry, each vendor and system owner has taken a different approach to managing the risks associated with inter-connected systems. 

As a result of the current fragmented approach to assuring system resiliency, information security professionals have had to continue to shift resources as the 

threats and vulnerabilities constantly change from day to day, with very little time 

to look at the problem and limited resources to coordinate a long-term strategy. For 

those who are seeking a strategic view, the trend that can be identified in the cyber 

security realm is that the threats consistently migrate on a ‘‘path of least resistance’’, meaning that where one service or component may be protected, the 

attackers will move to another service or component, continuously searching out the 

easiest entry points to achieve their objectives. Examples of this shift are evident 

in the way that core Internet services were protected after initial denial-of-service 

attacks in the mid 1990s, the increased focus on operating system security after the 

operating systems of Internet-connected computers were attacked in the late 1990s 

and early 2000s, and the increase in application-specific attacks that have been seen 

in the last two years. 

In light of the 2003 Internet worm incidents and subsequent cyber security incidents, it is important to review the current state of security of the components that 

make up our critical infrastructure systems. 

The majority of our nation’s critical infrastructure is privately owned and operated, with the asset owners being subject to market forces as they make decisions 

relative to the security of their systems. In the current situation where control system security issue awareness is sporadic and significant incidents have not been 

publicly reported, these privately-owned infrastructure systems have only rudimentary mitigations for security risks. Despite the lack of appropriate security controls, there are numerous examples where asset owners have decided to increase 

their dependency on technology to reduce the costs associated with having to maintain a large operating staff. This reduction in the number of qualified operators and 

increase in the number of connected systems has resulted in a significant increase 

in the vulnerabilities that we see affecting control systems today. 

INL has worked through government programs, industry associations and directly 

with vendors and asset owners to increase security awareness. While significant 

progress has been made in this area, it is still in the early stages of getting vendors 

and asset owners across infrastructures working together. Specifically, some vendors 

are still producing the components that make up infrastructure systems without appropriate security controls or an over-arching security architecture. Among the early 

and limited successes are a group of control systems technology vendors that are 

cooperating through government-sponsored partnerships to improve the security of 

those systems. Those efforts are still mostly confined to post-development security 

reviews. Also, in the areas of system updates, prescriptive implementation guidance 

and security support processes—control system security lags significantly behind 

other technology sectors. 

Exacerbating the immaturity of security in control systems, most of the deployed 

systems that compose our infrastructure today were designed and deployed prior to 

the wide-spread availability of networking technologies and the advent of the Internet. However, as was mentioned previously, the lack of security has not stopped 

asset owners from connecting those systems to the Internet to take advantage of 

technological efficiencies in the face of increasing competitive and resource pressures. 

Today, we find ourselves at a crossroads, where millions of infrastructure components are now connected to networks, allowing hackers access to systems that were 

never designed to be exposed to network attacks. 

While recent cyber security incidents, such as theft of personal information, denial 

of service attacks, and large-scale system compromise have impacted the Internet 

and connected computing systems, it needs to be emphasized that there has not yet 

50 

been a wide-spread focus by hackers on the control systems that underlie our nation’s infrastructure. Currently, vendors, asset owners, incident responders and information security experts do not fully appreciate the potential threat that exists 

to our infrastructure due to the risks created by vulnerabilities in control systems 

technologies. The pervasive use of technology, drive to ubiquitous connectivity and 

reduction in human oversight in control systems has introduced critical 

vulnerabilities in our infrastructure. The electricity that we depend on, the water 

that we drink, the petroleum that we use to get from place to place and financial 

systems we use for trade are all at some risk of being targeted and compromised. 

The NSTB program has funded 12 separate control systems security reviews, during which INL experts have found that all of the evaluated systems suffer from 

high-impact security vulnerabilities that could be exploitable by a low-skill-level 

attacker, using techniques that do not require physical access to systems. In reviewing the design and implementation of these control systems, the INL team discovered that in currently-deployed systems, enhanced security controls cannot easily be 

implemented while still assuring basic system functionality. 

With computer attackers constantly looking for new targets, they will follow the 

path of least resistance, which could lead them to the control systems that underlie 

our infrastructure. Information security experts, such as Alan Paller of the SANS 

(SysAdmin, Audit, Network, Security) Institute agree that without implementing 

risk mitigations, control systems will continue to be vulnerable. Based on historical 

examples of cyber security incidents in other technology domains, the corrections 

will most likely begin with small-scale incidents focused on economic gain, followed 

by the release of publicly-available vulnerability discovery tools and then transition 

to large-scale incidents designed to reduce confidence in the infrastructure systems 

themselves. 

As was reported by a government analyst in 2006 at a discussion in Williamsburg, 

Virginia, criminal extortion schemes have already occurred, where attackers have 

exploited control system vulnerabilities for economic gain. In December 2006 an 

automated control system vulnerability scanner was released allowing individuals 

with relatively little experience in control systems to quickly identify vulnerabilities. 

Following past correction trends, we may be on the path towards wide-spread vulnerability and exploitation. 

Another cause for concern is the increasing capability of hackers. In a recent 

paper published by IBM, experts agreed that attackers are forming a hacking industry, an underground economy that is quickly becoming a mature industry taking advantage of economies of scale with efficient distribution and communication channels. Raimund Genes, the Chief Technical Officer of Trend Micro, has stated that 

this underground digital economy generated more revenue than the $26 billion that 

legitimate security vendors generated in 2005. 

Today’s ‘‘just in time’’ markets are more susceptible to control systems security 

issues, whether it is the electrical utility industry, petroleum production and refining, transportation services, or other essential services. In the limited control system 

reviews and testing that INL has conducted we have modeled scenarios where simplistic attacks originating from the Internet could: 

• Degrade electric grid capacity 

• Impact petroleum refinery processes 

• Interrupt transportation networks 

• Compromise potable water systems 

This list is composed of a brief sampling of potential outcomes. It should also be 

noted that the inter-connected nature of our infrastructure increases the potential 

for a high-impact correction. Based on the Department of Energy’s research of the 

post–Katrina impacts on infrastructure, the second—and third-order impacts were 

in sectors not directly related to the infrastructure components destroyed by the 

hurricane. 

Comparing the capabilities of the asset owners and infrastructure technology vendors to the capabilities of the underground attacker community shows the stark contrast that exists between the attackers and the defenders. Based upon the widespread use of networked technologies observed during INL assessments, it should 

be noted that the complex systems that make up our nation’s infrastructure are out 

of balance—similar to how systems were out of balance preceding the events of 

2003. 

The course of action that is necessary in light of the current situation must be 

the continued decisive, coordinated, and committed effort by government, technology 

vendors, and asset owners. These efforts must start with effective awareness campaigns to educate all sectors about the risks that they currently face, followed with 

clear guidance on minimum standards for technology components of our nation?s infrastructure. This guidance must contemplate all aspects of the technology lifecycle, 

51 

including improved development standards, implementation guidelines, operations 

procedures, and incident response. Good progress has been made by progressive 

asset owners, industry-initiated infrastructure protection leadership and by vendors 

willing to anticipate larger market-driven requirements for more security. The process of change will best be supported by renewed vigor in finding ways to get tools, 

technology and knowledge to a larger audience of asset owners and technology providers. 

INL’s recommendation is to continue to prioritize and expediently address the 

issues associated with the nation’s control systems security. The use of technology 

in our nation’s infrastructure has improved the efficiency of infrastructure operations without corresponding improvements in the ability to secure these newly connected systems. For those of us working in this area the path is clear. We must 

maximize cooperation among asset owners and technology vendors to understand 

and improve control system security across the entire lifecycle of this necessary and 

critical technology. While we can’t reduce all risk, we must work collaboratively to 

reduce the impact of these occurrences. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Turner. 

Mr. Silva? 

STATEMENT OF KEN SILVA, CHIEF SECURITY OFFICER, 

VERISIGN 

Mr. SILVA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member McCaul, 

Congressman Lungren. I thank you for the opportunity to testify 

today. 

First, I want to commend and thank you for holding this hearing. 

All too often, cybersecurity is only the focus of attention after a few 

high-profile incidents, but it is the daily efforts by the government 

and private sector that ensure that we are prepared so that these 

attacks don’t cause significant economic disruption. 

Make no mistake about it, cyber attacks occur every day with increasing frequency, intensity and sophistication. For the most part, 

Internet users never know these incidents because the infrastructure is continually strengthened and fortified to manage them. 

While the Internet’s infrastructure may be invisible to users, it’s 

importance cannot be overstated. 

Internet usage has grown dramatically. The dot-com bust gave 

the illusion that Internet growth had slowed down, but in fact it 

has grown at remarkable rates. At the height of the dot-com boom 

in 2000, for example, roughly 250 million used the Internet. Today, 

according to Internet World statistics, more than 1 billion users 

worldwide rely on the Internet. 

The technology of the Internet has transformed personal communications, banking and finance, government processes and manufacturing. Twenty-five percent of America’s economic value moves 

over network connections each day. If the Internet were to go down 

for just a few hours, we would lose hundreds of millions of dollars 

of economic activity. For those reasons, it is critical that we make 

protecting our Internet infrastructure a priority. 

As the operator of the dot-com and dot-net domain registries, as 

well as the steward for two of the 13 route servers that serve as 

the nerve center for the Internet infrastructure, VeriSign has a 

unique position to observe cyber threats. The scale and scope of 

cyber attacks has grown dramatically over the last decade. For example, bandwidth demands to deal with cyber attacks have increased 150 times since 2000. 

A look at two of the largest attacks reflects how attacks have increased. In October of 2002, the Internet community got a wakeVerDate Nov 24 2008 07:50 Jun 15, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00055 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\DOCS\110-HRGS\110-26\43562.TXT HSEC PsN: DIANE
52 

up call when 13 DNS route servers, which serve as the heart of the 

Internet addressing system, came under heavy denial-of-service attack. While the October 2002 attack slowed down the Internet, it 

did not cripple it. 

Infrastructure providers did take steps to protect the networks to 

cope with this new threat, in part spurred by concern that terrorists might target the Internet. Significant bandwidth was added to 

manage future attacks and to decentralize the infrastructure so 

that a single incident could not knock out the entire route server 

infrastructure. 

Attacks on the infrastructure did not let up, however, although 

the newly fortified system was far better prepared to handle them. 

An attack of that scale today is viewed as pretty much ordinary 

and commonplace. Hackers, however, have become a little bit more 

sophisticated. A year ago, for example, a hacker systematically disabled over 1,500 Web sites using approximately 32,000 hijacked 

PCs in a span of 6 weeks. 

In an unfortunate twist, the very devices and increased bandwidth that make the Internet more robust and user friendly, are 

being co-opted to compromise the Internet. Now that computers are 

always on, they are easily accessible to hackers and other abusers 

to hijack. The increased bandwidth and computing power available 

literally gives hackers more ammunition to utilize against the infrastructure. 

VeriSign projects that the volume of Internet attacks will increase by 50 percent in both 2007 and 2008. We now that the U.S. 

government takes Internet attacks very seriously. The Department 

of Homeland Security conducts Cyber Storm, which is the most ambitious cyber war game of its kind that tests how over 100 government agencies, organizations and private companies respond to 

threats on the Internet. 

The private sector must also be ready. VeriSign recently announced a global initiative called Project Titan to expand and diversify its Internet infrastructure by 10 times by the year 2010. 

Under Project Titan, VeriSign expects to increase its capacity 10 

times, from over 400 billion DNS queries a day in capacity today, 

to more than 4 trillion per day; substantially expand its infrastructure both domestically and internationally—we are currently in the 

process of globally deploying over 70 sites worldwide; and to improve the monitoring infrastructure to provide a real-time, in-depth 

view of the anomalous network activity, either malicious or mishap 

activity. 

Given the increased usage and mounting threats, the Internet infrastructure must be continually fortified. Simply put, if we wait 

for usage to reach certain levels or attacks to take place to act, we 

are already too late. While the dot-com and dot-net systems currently get more than 30 billion queries a day, VeriSign believes it 

needs to continue to build a network infrastructure that can support 10 to 100 times that level of volume for the next few years. 

What is most concerning now is a scenario where terrorist attacks on a physical structure are combined with a cyber attack. 

Today is the 12th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. It 

took 168 American lives. If such an attack today were combined 

with a cyber incident, which could disrupt the communication netVerDate Nov 24 2008 07:50 Jun 15, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00056 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\DOCS\110-HRGS\110-26\43562.TXT HSEC PsN: DIANE
53 

works of those first responders, the damage could be much more 

severe. 

Equally concerning are the number of more subtle penetration 

attempts. We are literally constantly probed for vulnerabilities, and 

if we left our guard down for even a few moments, the slightest 

weakness could be exploited and damage far greater than a denialof-service attack could occur. 

I thank you for this opportunity to testify here today. 

[The statement of Mr. Silva follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF KEN SILVA

Good morning, Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of the Committee. My 

name is Ken Silva and I serve as Chief Security Officer of VeriSign. 

VeriSign operates intelligent infrastructure services that enable and protect billions of interactions every day across the world’s voice and data networks. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California and it has additional corporate 

facilities in Virginia, Kansas, Washington state and Massachusetts. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I have a prepared statement, 

which I would request be inserted in the record. 

First, I want to commend and thank you for holding this hearing. All too often, 

cyber security is only the focus of attention after high-profile incidents. But it’s the 

daily efforts by the government and private sector that ensure that we are prepared 

so these attacks don’t cause significant economic disruption. 

And make no mistake about it, cyber attacks occur every day, with increasing frequency, intensity and sophistication. For the most part, Internet users never even 

know of these incidents because the infrastructure is continually strengthened and 

fortified to manage them. 

While the Internet infrastructure may be invisible to users, its importance cannot 

be overstated. Internet usage has grown dramatically. The dot-com bust gave the 

illusion that Internet growth had slowed down, but in fact it has grown at remarkable rates. At the height of the dot-com boom in 2000, for example, roughly 250 million people used the Internet. Today, according to Internet World Stats, more than 

1 billion users worldwide rely on the Internet. 

The technology of the Internet has transformed personal communications, banking and finance, government process and manufacturing. Twenty-five percent of 

America’s economic value moves over network connections each day. If the Internet 

were to go down for a just few hours, we would lose hundreds of millions of dollars 

of economic activity. 

For those reasons, it is critical that we make protecting our Internet infrastructure a priority. 

As the operator of the .com and .net domain registries as well as the steward for 

two of the 13 root servers that serve as the nerve center for the Internet infrastructure, VeriSign has a unique position to observe cyber threats. 

The scale and scope of cyber attacks has grown dramatically over the last decade. 

For example, bandwidth demands to deal with cyber attacks have increased 150 

times since 2000. A look at the two largest attacks reflects how attacks have increased. 

In October 2002, the Internet community got a wake-up call when the 13 DNS 

root servers, which serve as the heart of the Internet addressing system, came 

under heavy denial of service (DoS) attack. 

While the October 2002 attack slowed down the Internet, it didn’t cripple it. 

Infrastructure providers took steps to protect the networks to cope with this new 

threat, in part spurred by concern that terrorists might target the Internet. Significant bandwidth was added to manage future attacks and to decentralize the infrastructure so that a single incident could not knock out a root server. Attacks on the 

infrastructure did not let up, although the newly fortified system was far better prepared to handle them. 

An attack of that scale today is viewed as ordinary and commonplace. 

Hackers, however, have become much more sophisticated. A year ago, for example, a hacker systematically disabled over 1,500 websites using approximately 

32,000 hijacked PCs. In these attacks, the hacker didn’t directly attack the domainname servers. Instead, they sent their traffic to a legitimate server with a DNS 

query and a forged source address. This attack was also amplified by 70x. 

In an unfortunate twist, the very devices and increased bandwidth that make the 

Internet more robust and user friendly are being co-opted to compromise the InterVerDate Nov 24 2008 07:50 Jun 15, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00057 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\DOCS\110-HRGS\110-26\43562.TXT HSEC PsN: DIANE
54 

net. Now that computers are always-on, they are easily accessible to hackers and 

other abusers to hijack. The increased bandwidth and computing power available 

literally gives hackers more ammunition to utilize against the infrastructure. 

VeriSign projects that the volume of Internet attacks will increase by 50 percent in 

both 2007 and 2008. In addition, massive infrastructures such telephony, television, 

and mobile communications will migrate to the Internet. 

We know that the U.S. Government takes Internet attacks very seriously. The Department of Homeland Security conducts ‘‘Cyber Storm,’’ the most ambitious cyber 

wargame of its kind that tests how over one hundred government agencies, organizations and private companies respond to threats to the Internet. 

The private sector must also be ready. VeriSign recently announced a global initiative called Project Titan to expand and diversify its Internet infrastructure by ten 

times by the year 2010. 

Under Project Titan, VeriSign expects to: 

• Increase its capacity 10 times from 400 billion DNS queries a day to 4 trillion 

a day. By doing so, VeriSign will ensure that the infrastructure is prepared not 

only for attacks, but the dramatic increase in Internet usage driven by Internetenabled mobile devices and social networking applications. 

• Substantially expand its infrastructure both domestically and internationally. 

VeriSign is in process of globally deploying over 70 DNS constellation sites. 

These sites will distribute Internet traffic and enable us to isolate attacks as 

they happen. 

• Improve the monitoring infrastructure to provide a real-time, in-depth view 

of anomalous network activity, either malicious or mishap. 

Given the increased usage and mounting threats, the Internet infrastructure must 

be continually fortified. Simply put, if we wait for usage to reach certain levels or 

attacks to take place to act, we are already too late. While the .com and .net systems currently get more than 30 billion queries a day, VeriSign believes it needs 

to continue to build a network infrastructure that can support 10 to 100 times that 

level of volume in the next few years. 

What is most concerning now is a scenario where terrorist attacks on a physical 

structure are combined with a cyber attack. Today is the 12th anniversary of the 

Oklahoma City bombing that took 168 American lives. If such an attack today was 

combined with a cyber incident that took down or disrupted our communications 

networks the damage could be much more severe. 

Equally concerning, are the number of more subtle penetration attempts. We are 

literally constantly probed for vulnerabilities and if we left our guard down for even 

a few moments, the slightest weakness could be exploited and damage far greater 

than that of a denial of service attack could occur. 

We have all witnessed, and learned, a lot over the last decade. We have had tragic 

reminders that our critical infrastructure and national symbols are targets. We have 

seen how not adequately preparing for events can have disastrous consequences. 

We know that Internet is often taken for granted. But the operators of that infrastructure must never take it for granted. We must remain vigilant in understanding 

what is driving the growth of the Internet and the malicious efforts of some who 

wish to disrupt it. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify here today. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Gentleman, I thank you for your testimony. 

I will now recognize myself for questions, beginning with Mr. 

Turner. 

I wanted to ask why haven’t we seen a widescale event take 

place if these systems are so easy to access? Without widescale 

events, what is the motivation for users to secure them? And how 

do we educate the owners and operators of these systems? And finally, will the systems ever be 100 percent secure? 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you for the opportunity to respond. 

For your first question, why haven’t we seen a major incident to 

date. There are a couple of factors that influence that, the first one 

being that for the vast life-span of these systems, they have not 

been connected to any network of any sort. 

But as I mentioned in my testimony, the private infrastructure 

owners who manage these systems, they are private entities and 

they are subject to market forces and resource constraints. So when 

55 

they have the opportunity to reduce staff to improve efficiency, 

they usually defer to connecting them to some sort of network to 

control them remotely. 

Based upon our research that we have seen and the assessments 

that we have conducted at INL, we see a significant increase in the 

number of connected systems in the last year. So we believe that 

we have not see a major incident to date because of the lack of 

connectivity, but that ecosystem is changing. 

Does that address your first question? 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Yes, sure. 

Mr. TURNER. The second one, how to educate. There are really 

three parts to the awareness equation that need to be taken a look 

at here. This problem cannot be solved by just focusing on the infrastructure owners or just focusing on the vendors. It has to be a 

holistic solution. So the vendors first need to be made aware of 

these types of vulnerabilities very early in the life-cycle of these 

systems, so that these vulnerabilities are not created when the 

product is shipped to the customer. 

Also, the customer needs to be informed about how to make sure 

that they deploy the systems in the correct way, and how to recognize an insecure architecture. And then the third aspect is we need 

to make sure that our law enforcement officials and incident responders understand what an incident looks like. We don’t really 

have a solid understanding of what an incident in this area looks 

like because nothing big has happened yet. 

And then the last one, how can we be 100 percent certain, or do 

we need to get to 100 percent security. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Will we ever get to 100 percent? 

Mr. TURNER. I think, as was mentioned before in prior testimony, 

security is a snapshot of a moment in time. The threat always 

changes. The vulnerabilities are introduced. So I don’t believe you 

can ever have a dynamic, effective, productive system and be 100 

percent secure. It would violate the reason why you built it. 

What you have to have in place are mitigations that help you get 

the business accomplished, while still monitoring the integrity of 

that system. So you have to make sure that you take a balanced 

response in making sure the system does its job, but that it can 

be monitored and maintained, and its integrity can be maintained 

over time. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Gentlemen, why do you think our nation isn’t 

doing enough in the area of control system security? Why does the 

government need to get involved? Where are the leadership areas 

that are appropriate for government? And how can federal regulation be used to improve the CIP posture? What areas are not appropriate for government, as well as what areas are appropriate? 

Mr. TURNER. Why are we not doing enough? Based upon my professional experience, I have seen what it takes to conduct a global 

information security program within a company like Microsoft; 

what it takes to make sure that the developers of the technology 

understand things; that the implementers understand things; and 

the end-customers understand it, too. 

When I compare the insights that I have into the budget that a 

company like Microsoft spends on a global information security improvement program, and I compare that to the insight that I have 

56 

into what we are doing as a country to protect our critical infrastructure, the budget being spent by Microsoft is a magnitude order 

greater than what we are spending as a country in this area. So 

that is the first comparison that I would make. 

As far as leadership, I think that government leadership should 

rely in areas such as setting a good example of how to secure government systems so that the critical infrastructure providers can 

look to the government as a leader in the space, and then also 

serve as a coordinator among different experts so that the expertise 

can be shared across the ecosystem. 

The last point of your question as far as regulation, I think government should get involved to assure a level playing field. There 

should be minimum standards that are established so that it is 

clear for all of the technology vendors and the infrastructure owners what constitutes the minimum here. 

I think a good example of that is some of the work that INL has 

done in conjunction with the DHS program for a procurement 

standard, meaning that you can teach the infrastructure owner 

what the minimum standard should be for those systems before 

you buy them and before you install them. We need to do that 

across the ecosystem, though. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Mr. Silva? 

Mr. SILVA. I don’t disagree with anything Mr. Turner said, except 

that in listening to the earlier panel and listening to some of the 

description of what they had to go through and how they had to 

do some risk analysis and make some decisions on whether to take 

these machines off or not, is not uncommon from what almost any 

company in the world would go through if they experienced a very 

similar type of incident. 

Patch management and the ability to keep systems updated and 

secure, for instance you could put a computer on the network today 

and you have cleaned all of the vulnerabilities that you know about 

today. Tomorrow, there may be 200 vulnerabilities attached to that 

machine that you didn’t know about when you put the machine on, 

or it could be a year from now, et cetera. 

The ability to be able to keep those machines updated and 

patched is a challenge that this industry has been facing for a decade, and still hasn’t completely solved the problem. Different companies deal with it in different ways. Trying to keep the systems 

secured to a common level and establishing a baseline for that, 

frankly that baseline would be probably obsolete by the time the 

ink dried on it in many cases. 

A lot of our government agencies, as well as our private companies are facing a lot of compliance issues, where they are dedicating a lot of time to trying to meet somebody’s interpretation of 

what a minimum standard is, and not adapting to what the new 

challenges are. So I think that there is a fine line to walk here between holding people accountable and regulating it. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. 

The chair now recognizes the ranking member of the subcommittee, Mr. McCaul, the gentleman from Texas, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MCCAUL. I thank the chair. 

57 

This is kind of a big picture question, but today vulnerabilities 

are discovered, found. Who do you believe is responsible to lead 

that effort to mitigate the risk? Who takes the lead? 

Mr. SILVA. Well, today, the government agency that we look to 

for that is the US–CERT. They are considered the authority of 

database for vulnerabilities and exploitation management. So we 

typically use them as the authoritative source for the contents of 

what those vulnerabilities are. They will typically list some mitigation strategies associated with that. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Do you believe that they are providing that leadership today at an adequate level? Is there more that they could be 

doing? 

Mr. SILVA. Well, I think that there is always more anybody could 

be doing, but yes I do think that they are actually doing a pretty 

good job at that. As a matter of fact, I think that when you look 

at the NCSD, for example, okay? I think that they are a model for 

a public-private partnership in terms of relationship. I was fascinated at the amount of information that they started providing 

us once we got into that pool of people, if you will, or industries 

that they support. 

NCSD provides a lot of information to us daily. Could it always 

be better? Nothing is ever perfect. I believe that every day they improve it. So I think they know it could be better and they constantly strive to do that. 

Mr. MCCAUL. What needs to be done to engage the private sector 

more in this area? We heard from Mr. Turner that the private-sector security is not always where it should be. What needs to be 

done to really bring in the private sector more to make them more 

of a leader in this area? 

Mr. SILVA. I am sure Mr. Turner will have something to say 

about this, but I will just say a couple of words on that. I think 

as long as it is viewed as a partnership, and you are not asking 

the private sector to just come in and sort of donate a bunch of effort and a bunch of time, and all of a sudden deep dark secrets 

wind up in the press. I think some of the issues have been addressed with respect to what information could be retrieved from 

FOIA, with information sharing. I think that was a big step in the 

right direction. We have seen a lot of positive movement because 

of that. 

So I think the biggest thing is to approach it as a partnership. 

It is a give and take. The good news is that I think that NCSD has 

taken their relationship with the private sector, they bring that information together; they sort of sanitize it, anonymize it, if you 

will, and then they can produce a cohesive report. Literally every 

day, they produce a daily summary of what the situation is. 

Mr. MCCAUL. So the FOIA exception that was passed that would 

protect your reporting a vulnerability, which obviously a private 

company is not going to want to report that for obvious reasons— 

shareholders and stock price. That has helped in the information 

sharing process with the government, in your view. 

Mr. SILVA. It absolutely has. In fact, if you break this down a little bit, Mr. Dixon cited earlier that there were a number of 

vulnerabilities and incidents that had been reported, and it was 

tens of thousands. It is a big number. Bear in mind that that numVerDate Nov 24 2008 07:50 Jun 15, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00061 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\DOCS\110-HRGS\110-26\43562.TXT HSEC PsN: DIANE
58 

ber is only from the people who have willingly reported it, and I 

dare say that the number is significantly higher that goes unreported. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Mr. Turner, you said something that caught my attention. You said that experts have found that all the systems suffer from high-impact security vulnerabilities that could be exploited 

by a low skill-level attacker. We always hear the story about the 

teenager learning how to hack into a computer network system and 

crash it, and then we think about that kind of capacity, that sort 

of skill on the part of a criminal or in the worst-case scenario, a 

terrorist. 

Yet, that is what you are reporting the experts have found. How 

do we strengthen that system so low skill-level, which would include obviously not a whole lot of knowledge to do it. How do we 

greater protect the system? 

Mr. TURNER. As I mentioned previously, the best way to approach this is holistically, meaning that you have to motivate the 

vendors to start including better security controls in the base technologies themselves. And then you also have to make sure that the 

infrastructure owners are properly trained to architect those systems properly so they don’t defeat the security controls that the 

vendor develops. 

And so in the case that further on in the testimony you will notice, some of the existing systems cannot necessarily be retrofitted 

with security technologies or enhanced security controls, while still 

maintaining system reliability. So that is going to be the barrier to 

entry for improve security for these private infrastructure owners. 

They are going to be the ones who have to make that decision of 

when do we rip and replace; what is the pain threshold that we 

have to go through. 

I think the role of government there is establishing this level 

playing field so that people understand these are the minimum 

standards, and then you defeat some of the market forces and the 

resource constraints that these private infrastructure owners are 

apparently under. So it is a combination of government motivating 

the private infrastructure owners to make the investment; informing the technology vendors about how to go about improving the 

technology; and then informing the infrastructure owners how to 

deploy it properly. I think that is the three-phase approach. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Do you agree with that, Mr. Silva, from the private-sector standpoint? 

Mr. SILVA. Yes, I do. I think that certainly incentives, whether 

positive or negative, definitely have an impact on that sort of thing. 

In terms of the vendors actually incorporating security into their 

software or their products, there is a huge challenge in that it still 

has to be usable, okay? 

So BlackBerrys, for example, are a very useful tool and a lot of 

people use them, but not a lot of people want to have to enter a 

password every time that they want to check their e-mail on that. 

So what happens is that they frequently turn it off, making it far 

less secure if you leave that on an airplane, and someone picks it 

up, and they basically have your whole mailbox. 

59 

So there is a tradeoff between usability and security. Unfortunately, oftentimes, things that are more convenient are often less 

secure because of that. 

Mr. MCCAUL. If I can just throw one last one, in terms of when 

we are talking about vulnerabilities—and if you can’t give me a 

specific percentage breakdown, I understand—but how much are 

we vulnerable because of technology weaknesses in the system, 

versus just what you talked about, and that is, for lack of a better 

term, operator error? 

Mr. SILVA. Oftentimes, the biggest vulnerability in any network 

sits between the keyboard and the back of the chair. So what will 

frequently happen is that users will make the system more accessible for themselves, their children, their coworkers, you know, 

what have you. And by and large, and the thing we have not really 

talked about here today is the insider threat, not just outsider 

threats, but insider threats. 

In fact, most of the most serious penetrations in networks have 

actually occurred from inside the network, where people actually 

steal the money or steal intellectual property from inside the company. But oftentimes, people will do things for their own convenience which inherently make the system less secure. 

Mr. TURNER. And we would back that up with the findings that 

we have had in our assessments. You can make the best, most secure technology, but if it is inconvenient in the end-users perspective, it often gets disabled. So it is an awareness issue all the way 

through to the end-user. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Thank you. I see my time has expired. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. I thank the gentleman. 

The gentleman from California, Mr. Lungren, is recognized for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. LUNGREN. I thank the gentleman. 

I thank the gentleman from Texas for leaving me some time. I 

appreciate this. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. MCCAUL. I was trying to filibuster. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. LUNGREN. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to suggest if we 

are going to conduct hearings on these high-technology issues here, 

we might ask if they could at least get the two clocks to be coordinated. 

[Laughter.] 

According to one, it is 8 minutes to 10:00, and the other one says 

it is 7 minutes after 7:00. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. I would check my BlackBerry, but I don’t know 

if that is working right now. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. LUNGREN. Well, for security reasons, no one knows what 

time it is. 

Here is the question. In the private sector, how do we make them 

do more than they are doing now, because you are talking about 

these control systems that are controlling more and more. How do 

we get them to understand better that security of this nature is acceptable to their bottom line? In other words, if I sell a product, 

my bottom line is expressed in some ways by the more attractive 

60 

I make my product. So the user sees air conditioning in the car; 

sees a new transmission, those sorts of things. 

Here you are selling products to individuals who want to make 

it user-friendly, want to make sure it works, but embedded in that 

is the threat against security. Therefore, embedded in that has to 

be the security against that invasion. How do we make it real for 

a CEO to listen to his I.T. security guy, the man or woman who 

comes in and says, there is this vulnerability, but—and I am 

quoting you, Mr. Silva—there are all kinds of vulnerabilities out 

there. There are attacks going on every day. Everybody sort of has 

them. 

How do I improve my product—and of course, we are talking 

about critical infrastructure—how do I improve it so that I can 

show my bottom line to my shareholders, to the taxpayers, to whoever, when perhaps the possibility of a catastrophic event is very 

small, but the consequence is huge. How do we do that when it is 

hidden the way it is, as you suggested? 

Mr. TURNER. The first approach that you have to look at this is 

you are exactly right. In a true risk management equation, without 

threat, without some sort of over-act, or some sort of large incident, 

it is very tough to drive purely business-focused people, because 

they can’t manage an unknown threat. You can talk about the 

worst impact in the world, but until there is some sort of incident, 

most times the people who are in pure risk management situations 

will not take any action. 

So with that sort of backdrop, you have to move into a situation 

where the people who manage the business of providing critical infrastructure are educated for the vulnerabilities that exist in their 

systems. In many cases, they don’t understand. Now, that education is where we have been spending a lot of effort, reaching out 

to industry at INL to help educate folks, but still there is a long 

ways to go. 

Mr. LUNGREN. So the government could do a lot in terms of education. I think that is an obligation. 

The next question is, what do we do in terms of regulation? If 

we do regulation, what is the nature of that regulation? Because 

if we do try and articulate what the range of fixes are, as you suggest, before the ink is dry, that may not be the right fix. 

So what is the—if you have any suggestions for us—the parameters of our legislative action that would create the incentives for 

this kind of protection you are talking about, on the one hand, and 

not diminish the ingenuity of the private sector, where they might 

find a fix that we haven’t even thought about, but they are doing 

that job. 

I know that is a general question, but that is really the tough 

thing that we have here. 

Mr. SILVA. It is a very fair question. Some of this was sort of addressed. Some examples of what you are talking about are things 

like the SAFETY Act, for example, where if you meet a minimum 

set of standards, you know your liability is limited, those sorts of 

things. There has to be some form of an incentive to get the average company to participate in an aggressive security activity. 

Some examples where we have seen some improvement have 

been around Sarbanes–Oxley, okay? So Section 404 of that sort of 

61 

suggests some security measures which need to be taken, and the 

board holds them accountable. But when a CSO walks into the 

CEO’s office and says, boss, I need $100 million to enhance the infrastructure because it might go down for 1 hour in the next 3 

years, okay? If I were a bank, I might accept that risk and say it 

is not worth $100 million to me. I can afford to be down 3 hours 

in the next 3 years. 

At VeriSign, we don’t have that luxury, because if we go down, 

every enterprise is down for 3 hours, and that is not a luxury we 

have. So I am fortunate as a CSO in that my CEO gets it, but I 

don’t think that you can make business sense to most CEOs that 

you want to spend tens or hundreds of millions of dollars fortifying 

an infrastructure with no financial return on it. So that is the challenge. 

Now, what Congress can do in particular is if you want strengthened software and better products, then insist on it when you buy 

them. 

Mr. LUNGREN. So we will spend more money. 

Mr. SILVA. You are already spending the money, right? You are 

already spending the money. You decide who you are going to 

spend it with based on the capabilities that they offer. This is not 

unprecedented. It has happened in the past. 

Mr. TURNER. To back up his comments, I think what is important is that if you are looking to take action, the first thing you 

can do is help to dedicate folks towards specific aspects of the area, 

so there is no one-size-fits-all security mechanism. Help the private 

folks categorize and prioritize their assets that support critical infrastructure, and then help them, motivate them to whatever 

mechanism you deem most appropriate to move towards something 

that is more proactive from the security perspective. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. The time has expired. 

I want to thank the witnesses for their very valuable testimony 

and the members for their questions. 

This is not the last hearing that we hold on cybersecurity, I can 

promise you that. I look forward to working with you as we go forward. The issue is too important to ignore. 

Again, we thank you for your testimony here today. 

The members of the subcommittee may have additional questions 

for the witnesses, and we will ask you to respond expeditiously to 

those questions. 

Hearing no further business, the subcommittee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:56 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

(63) 

APPENDIX A 

PREPARED STATEMENTS

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORALBLE JAMES LANGEVIN, CHAIRMAN, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS, CYBERSECURITY, AND SCIENCE, AND

TECHNOLOGY

• Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, Science and Technology hearing on the hacking of federal systems and 

privately-owned critical infrastructure. 

• I’d like to begin by thanking the witnesses who appear before us today, and I 

appreciate your testimony. 

• I’d like to focus my remarks this afternoon on our first panel, which will discuss 

the security of information technology on the federal level. 

• Let me be clear about the threat to our federal systems: I believe that the infiltration by foreign nationals of federal government networks is one of the most critical 

issues confronting our nation. 

• The acquisition of our government’s information by outsiders undermines our 

strength as a nation. If our sensitive information is stolen and absorbed by our enemies, we are strategically harmed. 

• Over time, the theft of critical information from government servers 

could cost the United States our advantage over our adversaries. This is a 

most critical issue that we cannot afford to ignore any longer. 

• Today we’re hearing from several agencies that have experienced significant 

cyber attacks against their systems. 

• These are not the only agencies experiencing these problems. They are simply 

the only attacks that have been made public. 

• In October 2006, hackers operating through Chinese Internet servers launched 

an attack on the computer system of the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) at 

the Department of Commerce. 

• The hackers penetrated the computers with a ‘‘rootkit’’ program, a form of software that allows attackers to mask their presence and then gain privileged access 

to the computer system. 

• In reviewing the Commerce testimony for today’s hearing, I am troubled by several things. 

• Though Commerce learned on July 13 that its computers were first infected, 

this was not the date of initial infection. In fact, Commerce has no idea how 

long the attackers were inside their systems, nor do they know if the 

attackers are still within their systems. As far as I can tell from the responses, 

rogue tunnel audits, authentication changes, and complete machine rebuilds have 

not occurred. 

• We’re also not sure how much information was lost. Though Commerce tells us 

that data was not ‘‘lost,’’ data can easily be ‘‘copied’’ and sent outside through the 

Internet. 

• Unfortunately, Commerce isn’t the only federal agency with a problem. 

• Prior to the Commerce hack, in June 2006, hackers accessed networks at several State Department locations, including its Washington headquarters, and inside 

the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. 

• They did so by sending a socially-engineered email to an employee. The employee opened the Microsoft Word document attachment, which contained an exploit 

code. 

• I am concerned about the temporary fix that State put in place. 

• Security authorities that I have spoken with are highly dubious about the success of ‘‘temporary wrappers,’’ the kind which State had to put in place due to the 

absence of a Microsoft patch for several months. 

64 

• Most targeted attacks involve root-kits, which cannot be detected or stopped by 

a ‘‘temporary wrapper.’’ I don’t understand, therefore, why State wouldn’t take its 

entire system offline for a full kernel inspection. 

• In reading State’s testimony, I believe that State made the determination that 

accessibility to data is more important than confidentiality and integrity. If 

State really valued confidentiality and integrity, they would have taken the system 

off line and done a full wash. 

• Both agencies insist that these attacks are less serious because they involve 

‘‘unclassified servers.’’ I disagree. 

• As you are no doubt aware, FISMA requires federal agencies to track down and 

identify every device and system on an agency’s network, and to make sure that the 

network topology is fully described. 

• As we learned last week, both State and Commerce received F’s in the latest 

round of FISMA scores. According to page 10 of the Fiscal year 2006 FISMA Report 

to Congress, the Inspector General at the Department of State reported that the 

agency did not complete at least 50% of its system inventory. The IG at the Department of Commerce certifies that at least 96% of Commerce systems have been 

inventoried. 

• I will suggest to our panelists today that if they can’t certify their network 

topologies to FISMA, then they can’t know for certain whether these incidents don’t 

involve the classified networks. 

• Furthermore, just because these attacks are occurring on the unclassified network does not mean this isn’t sensitive information. Information that may be 

deemed ‘‘classified’’ in the future may first appear on an unclassified network. 

• But this isn’t just about Commerce and State. 

• I am disappointed and troubled with the Department of Homeland Security’s progress in securing cyberspace. 

• The Department is the agency responsible for securing the nation’s critical infrastructure, and yet they received a ‘‘D’’ this year on its FISMA score. It is the first 

time since 2003 that the Department did not receive an ‘‘F.’’ 

• Our issue today is with the NCSD, but I’ll be honest with you: I don’t know 

how the Department thinks it’s going to lead this nation in securing cyberspace 

when it can’t even secure its own networks. 

• Not only are these grades embarrassing, it’s dangerous. Think about all of the 

critical information the Department is keeping on its networks. I can assure everyone here that the kinds of questions that have been asked to the State Department 

and the Commerce Department will be asked to DHS. 

• With regard to NCSD’s response to these incidents, I have a few thoughts. 

• It is my understanding that NCSD does not adequately share commonalities of 

attack information with other agencies that may be at risk. For instance, an agency 

like Commerce or State that has been hacked by a ‘‘zero-day exploit’’ will provide 

this information to the NCSD. But the NCSD can’t just sit on that information. 

• We need the NCSD to be the group that fuses information from across the federal government together and distributes a product for agencies to use. 

• Unfortunately, I understand that NCSD does not have protocols in place to 

share this kind information with other agencies in the federal government or perform that level of work. 

• This subcommittee will continue to monitor these issues to ensure that information sharing and technical response improves. 

• In closing, I think these incidents have opened up a lot of eyes in the halls of 

Congress. 

• We don’t know the scope of our networks. We don’t know who’s inside our networks. We don’t know what information has been stolen. 

• We need to get serious about this threat to our national security. 

PREPARED OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE BENNIE G. THOMPSON, 

CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

• I want to thank Chairman Langevin for holding this critical hearing. 

• I’ve been tracking this issue for some time now. 

• In October 2006, when the world first learned of the hacking incident at the 

Department of Commerce, I sent a letter to the Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity, Greg Garcia, asking several specific questions about the role of the Department 

in responding to this incident. 

• Unfortunately, I never received a response back from the Department. 

• I understand that I’m not the only one being left in the dark when it comes 

to the Department’s efforts in cybersecurity. 

65 

• If I understand Chairman Langevin correctly, many federal agencies are waiting for the Department to provide them with timely intelligence and recommendations about hacking incidents at the federal level. 

• Many in the private sector are also telling me that the Department is failing 

to provide the guidance and partnership necessary to successfully secure cyberspace. 

• It is clear that our government, working together with the private sector and 

academia, must do more to ensure that cybersecurity is a priority in our nation(s 

homeland security strategy. 

• In 1996, the United States government undertook the first national effort to secure our networks. 

• Unfortunately, I don’t believe that we are any further along today in our efforts 

to secure cyberspace. 

• Programs and initiatives that were developed over the past ten years have been 

dismantled and, in certain instances, are just now being re-created by the government. 

• We can see that this Administration views its priorities in cyberspace differently from the last Administration. 

• The most senior ranking official within the Administration exclusively responsible for cybersecurity has gone from being a Senior Advisor to the President to an 

Assistant Secretary position buried several layers down in the Department of Homeland Security bureaucracy. 

• I’m glad to read in Mr. Dixon’s statement that ‘‘coordinating better cyber security practices across the Federal government’’ is one of Secretary Chertoff’s ‘‘highest 

priorities.’’ 

• But this rings hollow to me when I think about how long it took him to appoint 

an Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity. 

• I also wonder why the Secretary believes that this Department will be able to 

coordinate better cyber security practices across the Federal government, when his 

own Chief Information Officer just received up a ‘‘D’’ in the recent FISMA grades. 

• Finally, I’m wondering why the Secretary wouldn’t send Mr. Garcia up on this 

first panel to testify. I can think of no better opportunity for him to work on coordinating better cyber security practices across the Federal government than sitting 

next to the State and Commerce Departments at this hearing. 

• I look forward to hearing the testimony and I appreciate the witnesses for being 

here today. 

(67) 

APPENDIX B 

ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES

QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE JAMES. R. LANGEVIN, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE

ON EMERGING THREATS, CYBERSECURITY, AND SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY

RESPONSES FROM JERRY DIXON

Question 1.: What kinds of products does the Department provide to 

other agencies when the Department hears about a ‘‘zero day’’ exploit? 

Does the Department send intelligence products to other agencies suggesting ways that they can remedy the vulnerability? Does the Department 

send patches that agencies can install on their own systems? 

Response: Zero-Day Exploits 

A zero-day exploit is one that takes advantage of a security vulnerability previously unknown to the general public. In many cases, the exploit code is written 

by the same person who discovered the vulnerability. By writing an exploit for the 

previously unknown vulnerability, the attacker creates a potent threat since the 

compressed timeframe between public discoveries of both the exploit and vulnerability makes it extremely difficult to defend against. In many cases, the critical nature of the exploit puts the vendor in the spotlight with the pressure to create a 

fix as soon as possible. 

Defending against zero-days is a difficult task for even the most vigilant administrator or experienced computer user. Establishing and following best practices is 

still the best defense in network security. These practices will help organizations decrease risks and determine incident response procedures should a need occur. 

US–CERT Vulnerability Disclosure Policy 

To support its operational mission, the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US–CERT) focuses its programs and initiatives on enhancing situational 

awareness, increasing collaboration across Federal operational security teams, preventing or quickly containing cyber incidents, and providing for inter-agency coordination during a cyber event. US-CERT established a vulnerability remediation process and a national alert system in order to collect, mitigate, and disseminate vulnerability information to Federal, public, and private partners. 

Vulnerabilities reported to US–CERT are forwarded to the affected vendors as 

soon as practical after the report is received. Extenuating circumstances, such as 

active exploitation, threats of an especially serious (or trivial) nature, or situations 

that require changes to an established standard may result in earlier or later disclosure. US–CERT’s goal is to balance the need of the public to be informed of security 

vulnerabilities with the vendors’ need for time to respond effectively. The final determination of a publication schedule is based on the best interests of the overall 

community. 

US–CERT provides Federal agencies and the public with actionable information 

regarding zero-day exploits in the form of technical and non-technical cyber alerts. 

These products are posted on the US–CERT public website, as well as distributed 

through the National Cyber Alert System. Federal agencies receive this information 

at the same time it is disclosed to the public. 

The cyber alerts contain recommendations and work-around for risk mitigation. 

After coordinating with vendors and gathering as much technical and threat information as possible, US–CERT takes steps to notify end users about the vulnerability. US–CERT strives to disclose accurate, neutral, objective information focused 

on technical remediation and mitigation. Targeting a technical audience (system administrators or others who are responsible for securing and patching systems), the 

alert describes the vulnerability in some detail, providing sufficient information for 

the user to make an informed decision about the risk. US–CERT will reference 

other available information and correct misinformation when possible. 

68 

US–CERT provides patch information and links for patches that can be 

downloaded as soon as they are available from the vendor. US–CERT does not create, nor does it endorse the use of third-party patches, for they are considered 

‘‘buyer-beware’’ and could introduce new problems or unforeseen configuration 

issues. Instead, US–CERT recommends that all organizations consider their options 

carefully and work with the vendor when faced with a zero-day threat. 

Question 2: What is the role of Assistant Secretary Garcia in the FISMA 

process? 

Response: The Federal Information Systems Management Act (FISMA) directs 

OMB to maintain a Federal information security incident center to perform the following functions: 1) provide timely technical assistance to agency information system operators; 2) compile and analyze incidents that threaten information security; 

3) inform agency information system operators about current and potential information security threats and vulnerabilities; and 4) consult with the National Institute 

of Standards and Technology (NIST), agencies or offices operating or exercising control over national security systems. It also requires all Federal civilian agencies to 

implement FISMA and to ensure the operation of a central Federal information security incident center. Although FISMA assigns this function to OMB, the Director 

of OMB has, in turn, issued guidance to Federal departments and agencies stating 

that DHS’ US-CERT performs these responsibilities, which is under the leadership 

of Assistant Secretary Garcia.1 

FISMA requires all Federal civilian agencies to notify the National Cyber Security 

Division (NCSD)/US–CERT of any data breaches, unauthorized access, or suspicious 

activity, including the loss of personally identifiable information (PII) within one 

hour of discovery. US–CERT collects this information to identify trends and provides 

regular reports to OMB. NCSD is promoting the need for Federal agencies to commit adequate resources to strengthen their networks, and to utilize robust technology security requirements in the procurement process combined with reasonable 

security practices. 

Question 3: In your experience, what percentage of governmental network security weaknesses are technology based and what percentage is 

based upon the failure to follow necessary protocols and procedures? In 

other words how many weaknesses are based on a lack of the proper security tool and which are based on network operator error? 

Response: All Federal agencies face ongoing challenges to maintain the 

security of their systems, which include both addressing security weaknesses and ensuring that processes and procedures are in place and followed to maintain security. 

Based on the experience of NCSD/US–CERT, the two greatest weaknesses in Federal government networks stem from the inherent vulnerabilities in operating systems, application software, and/or protocols, as well as the lack of user training/education. New exploits for vulnerable technology are discovered, targeted and exploited 

on a daily basis. In addition, end users are many times the greatest weakness, as 

they continually open unsolicited e-mail, respond to unsolicited e-mail, are sometimes targeted by e-mail, and visit malicious websites that can lead to intrusions. 

The NCSD/US–CERT maintains a number of programs and initiatives that focus 

on increasing security across the Federal government, which serve to address security weaknesses, improve awareness about good security practices, enhance coordination during a cyber event, and increase collaboration among Federal operational 

security teams. An example of this is the Government Forum of Incident Response 

and Security Teams, which is comprised of over 400 members from Federal Operational Security Teams, Chief Information Security Officers, and information security policy makers. In addition, the National Cyber Response Coordination Group 

(NCRCG) comes together for National Response Plan implementation or incident coordination. The NCRCG is comprised of cyber security experts from all of the cabinet departments, and facilitates inter-agency coordination activities in response to 

major cyber incidents affecting the public or private sector. 

69 

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