Next up: Kundra's cybersecurity dashboard

Federal CIO Vivek Kundra is not standing still with the launch of the IT dashboard that shows where money is being spent on government IT. Instead, he's moving quickly toward cybersecurity, and plans to parlay his experience with the IT dashboard into creating a cybersecurity one.

Kundra said in testimony last week before Congress that the White House will introduce new tools and metrics for measuring and managing the federal government's cybersecurity efforts.

"Historically, the federal government has not been as effective as necessary in its cyber defense," Kundra told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee's Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security. "An inadequate cybersecurity workforce, a focus on compliance rather than outcomes, and a cumbersome and time-consuming process for collecting information hindered our cybersecurity management capabilities."

There are challenges for Kundra to keep the trains moving on time in the cyber world, and much more to secure government systems and cut down on IT breaches. Kundra said the administration will be developing "metrics that focus on game changing ways to address real security."

The Office of Management and Budget recently released a new tool, called CyberScope, that lets federal agencies report FISMA compliance via an authenticated web-based reporting tool rather than sending spreadsheets via email. Agencies are required to report detailed spending information on cybersecurity this fiscal year. In just a few months, that information will make its way to a federal cybersecurity dashboard similar to the IT Dashboard.

"Just as the IT dashboard took us from a static, paper based environment to a dynamic digital environment, the new cybersecurity dashboard will provide the government with a real-time view of threats facing us and our vulnerabilities," Kundra said.

For more on the cybersecurity dashboard:
- see this InformationWeek article

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