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  The Nation's #1 Independent Veterans Web Site Click here to make VA Watchdog dot Org your homepage VA NEWS FLASH from Larry Scott at VA Watchdog dot Org -- 06-10-2008 |
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The Nation's #1 Independent Veterans Web Site Click here to make VA Watchdog dot Org your homepage VA NEWS FLASH from Larry Scott at VA Watchdog dot Org -- 06-10-2008 |
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information security law and its centralized environment are unlike the experience at most other large agencies.
For more about VA data security (or, lack of
security)...click here... Story here... http://www.fcw.com/online/news/152762-1.html Story below:
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VA promotes teamwork on cybersecurityBy Mary Mosquera
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The team includes representatives from the
Veterans Health, Veterans Benefits and National Cemetery administrations;
the IT division; and VA’s general counsel.
“You can’t do security in pockets,” Martinez said. “You have to do it
across the enterprise.”
She has help getting VA organizations to participate. In response to the
theft in 2006 of a laptop PC that contained sensitive information about
millions of veterans, VA centralized its IT authority and development
under the department’s chief information officer, who also has authority
to enforce information security policy.
Furthermore, Martinez said, VA is the only department that has its own law
governing information security and privacy breaches — the
Veterans
Benefits, Healthcare and IT Act of 2006, which requires the department to
send quarterly report to Congress detailing its information security
progress.
The CIO’s office receives daily reports on any incidents that come through
its security operations center. The inspector general’s office also has
access to the incident database, Martinez said, adding that her team
removes personally identifiable information from the incident information
before analyzing it and generating weekly reports.
The team meets weekly to review the reports and discuss trends and the
potential impact on VA and its individual business lines. The team members
then deliver the analysis to their managers, she said.
“We have to get educated together when you look at trends,” she said. “It
helps to change culture.”
VA’s information security law and its centralized environment are unlike
the experience at most other large agencies, said Ed Meagher, deputy CIO
at the Interior Department and formerly VA’s deputy CIO. Agencies
typically don’t have a command-and-control environment in which the
secretary can mandate activities related to information security, he
added.
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posted by Larry
Scott
Founder and Editor
VA Watchdog dot Org
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