The National Institute of Standards and Technology is working on updating governmentwide guidelines to protect computer security networks, and it's about time. It's been four years since federal agencies received the last set of guidelines, and the cyber threat has only gotten more serious.

Ron Ross, the National Institute of Standards and Technology's senior computer scientist, told Federal News Radio that the threat is more diverse. "The attackers are taking advantage of several things, some because we are not doing good housekeeping, and others because they are breaching the system," Ross said. "And the attackers can cover their tracks and plant malicious code and compromise our system and we wouldn't even know about it."

Ross is leading an effort to update the publication to deal with this issue and to give agencies an idea of where to go in this dangerous cyberworld.

There are plenty of changes in the new document, including a requirement that the Federal Enterprise Architecture be deployed inside the organization, as well as employing security in capital planning. It may sound like a lot more work, but think of it this way: It's definitely easier than repairing the damage from another cyber attack or theft of data by thieves who strike in the night.

For more on NIST's efforts:
- check out this federalnewsradio.com article