Ride the Lightning

Who Has the Worst Security in the U.S? The Government – Of Course

April 19, 2016

According to an April 14^th story from Reuters, federal, state and local government agencies have the dubious honor of ranking in last place in cybersecurity when compared against 17 major private industries, including transportation, retail and healthcare. This is based on a report issued by Security Scorecard, which measured the security of government and industries across 10 categories, including vulnerability to malware infections, exposure rates of passwords and susceptibility to social engineering. Education, telecommunications and pharmaceutical industries also got low rankings. The top performers were information services, construction, food and technology industries.

NASA and the U.S. Department of State ranked particularly poorly. Federal agencies ranked most poorly on network security, software patching flaws and malware.

None of this is especially surprising, but it underscores what a lousy job governments are doing at keeping their citizens' data – and other sensitive data – protected. President Obama has asked Congress to dedicate $19 billion to cybersecurity in its fiscal 2017 budget proposal – obviously sorely needed!

Hat tip to Kim and Chris Haught.

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