Cyber attacks show federal security gaps

Attacks that disrupted a number federal websites this month--including the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Aviation Administration and Department of the Treasury--have highlighted serious flaws in the government's security network.

Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute, said a key lesson from the attacks is that many agency security people did not know which network service provider connected their websites to the Internet. "So they could not get the network service provider to filter traffic," Paller told PCWorld. 

Karen Evans, former IT official in the Bush administration, said federal agencies have more access points to the Internet than they know how to keep track of. A 2007 initiative designed to deal with this issue has helped reduce the number of access point across government from more than 4,300 to about 2,750. The hope is to eventually bring that number down to about 80.

For more on federal security:
- see this PCWorld article