Welcome Guest. | Log In | Register | Membership Benefits

Study: Most Federal Agencies Uncertain About Meeting FISMA Security Monitoring Deadlines

Only 22 percent of respondents say their agencies have deployed continuous monitoring technology

Dec 14, 2011 | 02:47 PM | 

By Tim Wilson
Dark Reading
Federal government IT people are confused and uncertain about their agencies' abilities to meet federal guidelines for continuous monitoring of security posture, according to a study published today.

The RedSeal/Dimensional Research survey about FISMA continuous monitoring efforts indicates that more than half (55 percent) of federal IT professionals either don't believe their agencies will meet White House targets for implementing the technology or don't know whether they will meet them.

The deadline for continuous monitoring implementation originally was set for the end of fiscal 2011, which occurred in September. The deadline has since been extended to the end of fiscal 2012, but only 22 percent of respondents said their agencies have deployed the technology.

"Interestingly, the senior people that we surveyed -- the people who have the broadest view of the problem -- were the most pessimistic," says Mike Lloyd, CTO at RedSeal, which makes security monitoring tools. "The people who can see the whole picture are realizing how difficult continuous monitoring is and how much more is still to be done."

Most of the agencies represented in the survey -- which interviewed some 234 IT professionals at the recent GFIRST conference -- do not currently believe they have the tools necessary to meet the continuous monitoring deadlines or are unaware whether they do.

While the survey listed several different technologies that might be used for continuous monitoring, only one of them -- intrusion detection -- was cited as a solution by more than half of the respondents.

"What that says is that most of these people don't really know what technologies they're going to be using for continuous monitoring," Lloyd says. "There's no clear answer as to what tools will be used."

One of the problems with compliance could be the slushy deadlines and lack of strong penalties if agencies don't make the deadline, observers say.

"It’s extremely disappointing to see that even though the government issued these directives for continuous monitoring years ago, the people charged with implementation are not far enough along in acquiring or deploying the systems necessary to meet the requirements," says Major General John Casciano (USAF-Ret.), an adviser to RedSeal. "It might be time to take some people out behind the woodshed."

Have a comment on this story? Please click "Comment" below. If you'd like to contact Dark Reading's editors directly, send us a message.



Currently we allow the following HTML tags in comments:

Single tags

These tags can be used alone and don't need an ending tag.

<br> Defines a single line break

<hr> Defines a horizontal line

Matching tags

These require an ending tag - e.g. <i>italic text</i>

<a> Defines an anchor

<b> Defines bold text

<big> Defines big text

<blockquote> Defines a long quotation

<caption> Defines a table caption

<cite> Defines a citation

<code> Defines computer code text

<em> Defines emphasized text

<fieldset> Defines a border around elements in a form

<h1> This is heading 1

<h2> This is heading 2

<h3> This is heading 3

<h4> This is heading 4

<h5> This is heading 5

<h6> This is heading 6

<i> Defines italic text

<p> Defines a paragraph

<pre> Defines preformatted text

<q> Defines a short quotation

<samp> Defines sample computer code text

<small> Defines small text

<span> Defines a section in a document

<s> Defines strikethrough text

<strike> Defines strikethrough text

<strong> Defines strong text

<sub> Defines subscripted text

<sup> Defines superscripted text

<u> Defines underlined text

Dark Reading encourages readers to engage in spirited, healthy debate, including taking us to task. However, Dark Reading moderates all comments posted to our site, and reserves the right to modify or remove any content that it determines to be derogatory, offensive, inflammatory, vulgar, irrelevant/off-topic, racist or obvious marketing/SPAM. Dark Reading further reserves the right to disable the profile of any commenter participating in said activities.

Disqus Tips To upload an avatar photo, first complete your Disqus profile. | View the list of supported HTML tags you can use to style comments. | Please read our commenting policy.
Subscribe to RSS



Security Monitoring Reports

report Fundamentals of User Activity Monitoring
Benchmarking normal activity and then monitoring for users who stray from that norm is an essential strategy for getting ahead of potential data and system breaches. But choosing the right tools is only part of the effort. Without sufficient training, efficient deployment and a good response plan, attackers could gain the upper hand.

report Does SIEM Make Sense For Your Company?
A security information and event management system serves as a repository for all the security alerts and logging systems from a firm's devices. But this can be overkill for a company that is understaffed or has overestimated its security information needs. In this report, we discuss 10 questions to ask yourself in determining whether SIEM makes sense for you--and how to pick the right system if it does.

report Monitoring Tools and Logs Make All The Difference
It's no longer a matter of "if" you get hacked, but when. In this special report, we take a look at ways to measure your security posture and the challenges that lie ahead with the emerging threat landscape.

Other reports from the Security Monitoring Tech Center:

Related Content

Security Management 2.0: Time to Replace Your SIEM?
Is it time? Are you waving the white flag? Has your first gen SIEM failed to meet expectations despite your investment? If you are questioning whether your existing product or service can get the job done, you are not alone. Read this Securosis white paper to learn how easy it can be to replace your SIEM with a next generation solution.

IT Executive Guide to Security Intelligence: Transitioning from SIEM to Total Security Intelligence
Read this whitepaper to learn how adopting a next generation SIEM solution provides security intelligence, to allow organizations to maintain comprehensive and cost-effective information security. Discover how security intelligence enables critical concerns in five key areas: Data silo consolidation, threat detection, fraud discovery, risk assessment/risk management, and regulatory compliance.

The Return on Security of QRadar: Improving Operational Efficiencies in Federal Government
In this study, IANS interviewed two Q1 Labs customers using QRadar to assess their Return On Security (ROS). The two customers were providers of service to the U.S. Government and had highly secure environments dealing with extremely sensitive data. The data yielded from the interviews showed substantial benefit to the organizations for the cost, both in money and staff time.

SANS What Works Webcast: Worldwide Retailer Boosts Privacy with Security Intelligence
A leading retailer with stores worldwide was seeking a more innovative tool to protect customer privacy and intellectual property. PCI compliance mandated log collection, but a vast number of different tools generated an overwhelming amount of log data, making it difficult for the small security team to review it effectively. The solution the company chose had to fit into a diverse network, provide intelligent reporting and offer a centralized management console.

Learn How Security Intelligence Can Help Combat WikiLeaks Stuxnet and Advanced Threats
WikiLeaks and Stuxnet have illustrated a few fundamental IT security issues that have underscored the need for Total Security Intelligence to counter advanced threats and to detect anomalous behavior. See how government and commercial organizations are using QRadar as an integral component of their IT security program to identify emerging threats based on context and situational awareness.




Featured Webcasts
Featured Whitepapers
Featured Reports