The Department of Defense is facing criticism over its handling of background check data.
A report from the Pentagon’s Government Accountability Office (GAO) took the department to task for what it deemed to be inadequate security protections for the system agencies use to perform background checks.
In the report, originally posted by NextGov, the GAO found that the Pentagon systems suffered from both a lack of proper oversight and organization as well as a failure to keep its systems updated and in compliance with current government standards. As a result, the information gathered during background checks could be vulnerable to access by outside attackers.
“To conduct background investigations, the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) currently uses a combination of recently developed DOD National Background Investigation Services systems and legacy systems formerly owned by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
“In considering the cybersecurity risks of these systems, DCSA did not fully address all planning steps of DOD’s risk management framework,” the report states.
Among the issues spotted by investigators were…
