Critical analysis and replies needed

How will your administration ensure that Digital Government services are secure?

 

First, my administration will not hide breaches, once they are identified. We see that with the NOAA hack, Representative Wolf, stated "NOAA told me it was a hack and it was China." (Storm, 2016)  Representative Wolf goes onto say NOAA covered up the breach as well.  (Storm, 2016)  I would set forth an initiaive to push through the Data Security and Breach Notification Act of 2015 to hold agencies accountable in the case of breaches when they occur.  This presents a clear and present danger to government services as they provide information and services to the American citizens.  Digital government services are built three "layers": the information, or data, such as weather and census data plus other supporting data, the platform by which data is delivered and managed for access by people, and the presentation layer, which determines the way in which people see the and receive the data through the Internet, mobile applications, and other delivery methods (Office of Management and Budget, 2016)  We have seen that between "January 1, 2009 and May 31, 2012, there have been 268 breach incidents in government agencies with more than 94 million records containing personally identifiable information exposed." (Data Breaches, 2012)  Threats come in many forms: malicious software, nation state actors (people who are working for adversaral governments), hacktivists (hackers with a cause), etc.  Threats are what we can expect to exploit vulnerabilities in computer systems.

 

Digital government services are meant to be open platform to provide the American people with information in a way that allows for the creation of data once, then allowing agencies to collaborate to generate consistent data for people to access while preserving privacy throughout the process. (Office of Management and Budget, 2016)  One way this is accomplished, agencies are using tools to tailor services to the needs of users and tools help people to complete complex forms, such as FAFSA forms, reducing form completion time by 66%. (Keller & Zinner, 2015)  This is done through the use of Application Programming Interfaces, or APIs. (Office of Management and Budget, 2016)  Also, mobile is quickly transforming the way data is delivered as well; "By 2015, more Americans will access the Internet via mobile devices than desktop PCs." (Office of Management and Budget, 2016)  The challenge lies in the ability of the government to provide the public with data quickly and securely.

As we have seen just in the past few years, various government agencies have been breached, and millions of personal records have been compromised. Past administrations seem to have failed in establishing a breach and notification standard, making agencies or other entities accountable for breaches, and enabled the abilities of agencies to better share threat-based information (Government Accountability Office, 2016)  Now we have the Data Security and Breach Notification Act of 2015, introduced to require notification of breaches within the government, which also specifies criminal penalties of fines, jail time, or both, for not admitting to breaches causing economic damage to people. (Nelson, 2015) This will help to enforce the standards of notifications of breaches to better inform the public to enhance government relationships with the public.  Hopefully, this will lead to better interagency threat knowledge sharing as well.  Legal challenges present issues between agencies to allowing agencies to share this important information; these barriers need to be removed to enable agility in securing digital government services.

  

REFERENCES

Data Breaches in the Government Sector. (2012). Retrieved 14 June 2016, from  https://www.rapid7.com/docs/data-breach-report.pdf

Government Accountability Office,. (2016). Privacy in the Digital Age: Preventing Data Breaches and combating cyber crime.. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Publishing Office.

Keller, E., & Zinner, C. (2015). Streamlining Government Services in the Digital Age.  Public Manager, 44(2), 29-30.

Nelson, B. (2015). S.177 - 114th Congress (2015-2016): Data Security and Breach Notification Act of 2015. Congress.gov. Retrieved 14 June 2016, from https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/177

Office of Management and Budget. (2016). Digital Government: Building a 21st Century Platform to Better Serve the American People. Whitehouse.gov. Retrieved 14 June 2016, from https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/egov/digital-government/digital-   government.html

Storm, D. (2016). List of hacked government agencies grows: State Department, White House, NOAA & USPS. Computerworld. Retrieved 14 June 2016, from http://www.computerworld.com/article/2848779/list-of-hacked-government-agencies-grows-                state-department-white-house-noaa-and-usps.html