Information Security: Cyber Threats and Vulnerabilities Place Federal Systems at Risk
Released: 2009-05-05T00:00:00

Letter

Background

As computer technology has advanced, federal agencies have become dependent on computerized information systems to carry out their operations and to process, maintain, and report essential information. 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, deliver services to the public, and account for their resources without these information assets. Information security is thus especially important for federal agencies to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of their information and information systems. Conversely, ineffective information security controls can result in significant risk to a broad array of government operations and assets. For example: ● Resources, such as federal payments and collections, could be lost or stolen. ● 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, intellectual property, and proprietary business information, could be inappropriately disclosed, browsed, or copied for purposes of identity theft, espionage, or other types of crime. ● Critical operations, such as those supporting critical infrastructure, national defense, and emergency services, could be disrupted. ● Data could be added, modified, or deleted for purposes of fraud, subterfuge, or disruption. ● Agency missions could be undermined by embarrassing incidents that result in diminished confidence in the ability of federal organizations to conduct operations and fulfill their responsibilities.

Federal Systems and Infrastructures Face Increasing Cyber Threats

Cyber threats to federal information systems and cyber-based critical infrastructures are evolving and growing. In September 2007, we reported that these threats can be unintentional and intentional, targeted or nontargeted, and can come from a variety of sources. Unintentional threats can be caused by inattentive or untrained employees, software upgrades, maintenance procedures, and equipment failures that inadvertently disrupt systems or corrupt data. Intentional threats include both targeted and nontargeted attacks. A targeted attack is when a group or individual attacks a specific system or cyber-based critical infrastructure. A nontargeted attack occurs when the intended target of the attack is uncertain, such as when a virus, worm, or other malicious software is released on the Internet with no specific target.

Government officials are concerned about attacks from individuals and groups with malicious intent, such as criminals, terrorists, and adversarial foreign nations. For example, in February 2009, the Director of National Intelligence testified that foreign nations and criminals have targeted government and private sector networks to gain a competitive advantage and potentially disrupt or destroy them, and that terrorist groups have expressed a desire to use cyber attacks as a means to target the United States. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has identified multiple sources of threats to our nation’s critical information systems, including foreign nations engaged in espionage and information warfare, domestic criminals, hackers, virus writers, and disgruntled employees and contractors working within an organization. Table 1 summarizes those groups or individuals that are considered to be key sources of cyber threats to our nation’s information systems and cyber infrastructures.

These groups and individuals have a variety of attack techniques at their disposal. Furthermore, as we have previously reported, the techniques have characteristics that can vastly enhance the reach and impact of their actions, such as the following: ● Attackers do not need to be physically close to their targets to perpetrate a cyber attack. ● Technology allows actions to easily cross multiple state and national borders. ● Attacks can be carried out automatically, at high speed, and by attacking a vast number of victims at the same time. ● Attackers can more easily remain anonymous.

Table 2 identifies the types and techniques of cyber attacks that are commonly used.

Government officials are increasingly concerned about the potential for a cyber attack. According to the Director of National Intelligence, the growing connectivity between information systems, the Internet, and other infrastructures creates opportunities for attackers to disrupt telecommunications, electrical power, and other critical infrastructures. As government, private sector, and personal activities continue to move to networked operations, as digital systems add ever more capabilities, as wireless systems become more ubiquitous, and as the design, manufacture, and service of IT have moved overseas, the threat will continue to grow. Over the past year, cyber exploitation activity has grown more sophisticated, more targeted, and more serious. For example, the Director of National Intelligence also stated that, in August 2008, the Georgian national government’s Web sites were disabled during hostilities with Russia, which hindered the government’s ability to communicate its perspective about the conflict. The director expects disruptive cyber activities to become the norm in future political and military conflicts.

Reported Security Incidents Are on the Rise

Perhaps reflective of the evolving and growing nature of the threats to federal systems, agencies are reporting an increasing number of security incidents. These incidents put sensitive information at risk. Personally identifiable information about Americans has been lost, stolen, or improperly disclosed, thereby potentially exposing those individuals to loss of privacy, identity theft, and financial crimes. Reported attacks and unintentional incidents involving critical infrastructure systems demonstrate that a serious attack could be devastating. Agencies have experienced a wide range of incidents involving data loss or theft, computer intrusions, and privacy breaches, underscoring the need for improved security practices.

When incidents occur, agencies are to notify the federal information security incident center—US-CERT. As shown in figure 1, the number of incidents reported by federal agencies to US-CERT has increased dramatically over the past 3 years, increasing from 5,503 incidents reported in fiscal year 2006 to 16,843 incidents in fiscal year 2008 (about a 206 percent increase).

Incidents are categorized by US-CERT in the following manner: ● Unauthorized access: In this category, an individual gains logical or physical access without permission to a federal agency’s network, system, application, data, or other resource. ● Denial of service: An attack that successfully prevents or impairs the normal authorized functionality of networks, systems, or applications by exhausting resources. This activity includes being the victim or participating in a denial of service attack. ● Malicious code: Successful installation of malicious software (e.g., virus, worm, Trojan horse, or other code-based malicious entity) that infects an operating system or application. Agencies are not required to report malicious logic that has been successfully quarantined by antivirus software. ● Improper usage: A person violates acceptable computing use policies. ● Scans/probes/attempted access: This category includes any activity that seeks to access or identify a federal agency computer, open ports, protocols, service, or any combination of these for later exploit. This activity does not directly result in a compromise or denial of service. ● Investigation: Unconfirmed incidents that are potentially malicious or anomalous activity deemed by the reporting entity to warrant further review.

As noted in figure 2, the three most prevalent types of incidents reported to US-CERT during fiscal years 2006 through 2008 were unauthorized access, improper usage, and investigation.

Vulnerabilities Pervade Federal Information Systems

The growing threats and increasing number of reported incidents, highlight the need for effective information security policies and practices. However, serious and widespread information security control deficiencies continue to place federal assets at risk of inadvertent or deliberate misuse, financial information at risk of unauthorized modification or destruction, sensitive information at risk of inappropriate disclosure, and critical operations at risk of disruption.

In their fiscal year 2008 performance and accountability reports, 20 of 24 major agencies indicated that inadequate information system controls over financial systems and information were either a significant deficiency or a material weakness for financial statement reporting (see fig. 3).

Similarly, our audits have identified control deficiencies in both financial and nonfinancial systems, including vulnerabilities in critical federal systems. For example: ● We reported in September 2008 that although the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)—one of the nation’s weapons laboratories—implemented measures to enhance the information security of its unclassified network, vulnerabilities continued to exist in several critical areas, including (1) identifying and authenticating users of the network, (2) encrypting sensitive information, (3) monitoring and auditing compliance with security policies, (4) controlling and documenting changes to a computer system’s hardware and software, and (5) restricting physical access to computing resources. As a result, sensitive information on the network—including unclassified controlled nuclear information, naval nuclear propulsion information, export control information, and personally identifiable information—were exposed to an unnecessary risk of compromise. Moreover, the risk was heightened because about 300 (or 44 percent) of 688 foreign nationals who had access to the unclassified network as of May 2008 were from countries classified as sensitive by the Department of Energy, such as China, India, and Russia. ● In May 2008 we reported that the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)— a federal corporation and the nation’s largest public power company that generates and transmits electricity using its 52 fossil, hydro, and nuclear power plants and transmission facilities—had not fully implemented appropriate security practices to secure the control systems used to operate its critical infrastructures. Both its corporate network infrastructure and control systems networks and devices at individual facilities and plants were vulnerable to disruption. In addition, the interconnections between TVA’s control system networks and its corporate network increased the risk that security weaknesses, on the corporate network could affect control systems networks and we determined that the control systems were at increased risk of unauthorized modification or disruption by both internal and external threats. These deficiencies placed TVA at increased and unnecessary risk of being unable to respond properly to a major disruption resulting from an intended or unintended cyber incident, which could then, in turn, affect the agency’s operations and its customers.

Weaknesses Persist in All Major Categories of Controls

Vulnerabilities in the form of inadequate information system controls have been found repeatedly in our prior reports as well as IG and agency reports. These weaknesses fall into 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 security features for hardware and software are identified and implemented and that changes to that configuration are systematically controlled; (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 4 shows the number of major agencies with weaknesses in these five areas.

Over the last several years, most agencies have not implemented controls to sufficiently prevent, limit, or detect access to computer networks, systems, or information. Our analysis of IG, agency, and our own reports uncovered that agencies did not have adequate controls in place to ensure that only authorized individuals could access or manipulate data on their systems and networks. To illustrate, weaknesses were reported in such controls at 23 of 24 major agencies for fiscal year 2008. For example, agencies did not consistently (1) identify and authenticate users to prevent unauthorized access, (2) enforce the principle of least privilege to ensure that authorized access was necessary and appropriate, (3) establish sufficient boundary protection mechanisms, (4) apply encryption to protect sensitive data on networks and portable devices, and (5) log, audit, and monitor security-relevant events. At least nine agencies also lacked effective controls to restrict physical access to information assets. We previously reported that many of the data losses occurring 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.

In addition, agencies did not always configure network devices and services to prevent unauthorized access and ensure system integrity, patch key servers and workstations in a timely manner, or segregate incompatible duties to different individuals or groups so that one individual does not control all aspects of a process or transaction. Furthermore, agencies did not always ensure that continuity of operations plans contained all essential information necessary to restore services in a timely manner. Weaknesses in these areas increase the risk of unauthorized use, disclosure, modification, or loss of information.

An underlying cause for information security weaknesses identified at federal agencies is that they have not yet fully or effectively implemented key elements for an agencywide information security program. An agencywide security program, required by the Federal Information Security Management Act, provides a framework and continuing cycle of activity for assessing and managing risk, developing and implementing security policies and procedures, promoting security awareness and training, monitoring the adequacy of the entity’s computer-related controls through security tests and evaluations, and implementing remedial actions as appropriate. Our analysis determined that 23 of 24 major federal agencies had weaknesses in their agencywide information security programs.

Due to the persistent nature of these vulnerabilities and associated risks, we continued to designate information security as a governmentwide high-risk issue in our most recent biennial report to Congress; a designation we have made in each report since 1997.

Opportunities Exist for Enhancing Federal Information Security

Over the past several years, we and the IGs have made hundreds of recommendations to agencies for actions necessary to resolve prior significant control deficiencies and information security program shortfalls. For example, we recommended that agencies correct specific information security deficiencies related to user identification and authentication, authorization, boundary protections, cryptography, audit and monitoring, physical security, configuration management, segregation of duties, and contingency planning. We have also recommended that agencies fully implement comprehensive, agencywide information security programs by correcting shortcomings in risk assessments, information security policies and procedures, security planning, security training, system tests and evaluations, and remedial actions. The effective implementation of these recommendations will strengthen the security posture at these agencies.

In addition, the White House, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and certain federal agencies have continued or launched several governmentwide initiatives that are intended to enhance information security at federal agencies. These key initiatives are discussed below. ● Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative: In January 2008, President Bush began to implement a series of initiatives aimed primarily at improving the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies’ efforts to protect against intrusion attempts and anticipate future threats. While these initiatives have not been made public, the Director of National Intelligence stated that they include defensive, offensive, research and development, and counterintelligence efforts, as well as a project to improve public/private partnerships. ● The Information Systems Security Line of Business: The goal of this initiative, led by OMB, is to improve the level of information systems security across government agencies and reduce costs by sharing common processes and functions for managing information systems security. Several agencies have been designated as service providers for IT security awareness training and FISMA reporting. ● Federal Desktop Core Configuration: For this initiative, OMB directed agencies that have Windows XP deployed and plan to upgrade to Windows Vista operating systems to adopt the security configurations developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Department of Defense, and Department of Homeland Security. The goal of this initiative is to improve information security and reduce overall IT operating costs. ● SmartBUY: This program, led by the General Services Administration, is to support enterprise-level software management through the aggregate buying of commercial software governmentwide in an effort to achieve cost savings through volume discounts. The SmartBUY initiative was expanded to include commercial off-the-shelf encryption software and to permit all federal agencies to participate in the program. The initiative is to also include licenses for information assurance. ● Trusted Internet Connections Initiative: This is an effort designed to optimize individual agency network services into a common solution for the federal government. The initiative is to facilitate the reduction of external connections, including Internet points of presence, to a target of 50.

We currently have ongoing work that addresses the status, planning, and implementation efforts of several of these initiatives.

In summary, the threats to federal information systems are evolving and growing, and federal systems are not sufficiently protected to consistently thwart the threats. Unintended incidents and attacks from individuals and groups with malicious intent, such as criminals, terrorists, and adversarial foreign nations, have the potential to cause significant damage to the ability of agencies to effectively perform their missions, deliver services to constituents, and account for their resources. Opportunities exist to improve information security at federal agencies. The White House, OMB, and certain federal agencies have initiated efforts that are intended to strengthen the protection of federal information and information systems. Until such opportunities are seized and fully exploited, and agencies fully and effectively implement the hundreds of recommendations by us and by IGs to mitigate information security control deficiencies and implement agencywide information security programs, federal information and systems will remain vulnerable.

Chairwoman Watson, this concludes my statement. I would be happy to answer questions at the appropriate time.

Contact and Acknowledgments

If you have any questions regarding this report, please contact Gregory C. Wilshusen, Director, Information Security Issues, at (202) 512-6244 or wilshuseng@gao.gov. Other key contributors to this report include Charles Vrabel (Assistant Director), Larry Crosland, Neil Doherty, Rebecca LaPaze, and Jayne Wilson.

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