All hail cybersecurity overlords Jeff and Tina.
(Task & Purpose illustration)
Jeff and Tina, the recently-retired avatars of the Department of Defense’s annual Cyber Awareness Challenge, would probably be very upset if they saw a new report on DoD’s efforts to tighten up its cyber hygiene game.
What’s cyber hygiene, you ask? It’s not giving your laptop a bubble bath; it’s more like keeping your passwords strong, identifying potential phishing attacks, and keeping software up-to-date.
While it sounds basic, cyber hygiene is no joke: 90% of cyberattacks could be defeated by implementing basic cyber hygiene and sharing best practices, the DoD’s principal cyber advisor said according to the report from the Government Accountability Office.
Despite the importance of cyber hygiene, GAO found that there are huge gaps in the Pentagon’s implementation of three of its cyber hygiene programs.
The military hasn’t fully implemented those programs, GAO found, and DoD isn’t keeping good track of its efforts overall. That’s a problem, GAO said, because cybersecurity is a group effort.
“We view this as a culture-over-technology issue,” said Joseph Kirschbaum, director of GAO’s…
