A 10-month investigation revealed serious flaws in federal agencies, exposing private information. The study reviewed data compiled over the last decade by the inspector general on federal information security standards for eight agencies, including the departments of State, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Transportation, Education, Agriculture, and Housing and Urban Development, and the Social Security Administration.
“Of these agencies, the report found that seven had failed to provide adequate protection for personal information in their systems and that six of the agencies had not installed system patches in a timely way to protect against cyber vulnerabilities,” says The Hill. “All eight agencies were found to use “legacy systems,” or those not supported by the original manufacturer anymore, resulting in further cyber vulnerabilities.”