The modern network and Internet security vulnerabilities expose state and local government networks to numerous threats such as denial of service (DoS) attacks, computer viruses, unauthorized access, confidentiality breaches, and so forth. For example, in June 2005, the state of Delaware saw a spike of 141,000 instances of “suspicious activity” due to a variant of the mytopb worm, which could have brought the state’s network to its knees had appropriate steps not been taken (Jarrett, 2005; National Association of State Chief Information Officers [NASCIO], 2006b). On an average day, the state of Michigan blocks 22,059 spam e-mails, 21,702 e-mail viruses, 4,239 Web defacements, and six remote computer takeover attempts. Delaware fends off nearly 3,000 attempts at entering the state’s network daily (NASCIO, 2006b). Governments have the obligation to manage their information security risks by securing mission- critical internal resources such as financial records and taxpayer sensitive information on their networks. Consequently, public-sector information security officers are faced with the challenge to contain damage from compromised systems, prevent internally and Internet-launched attacks, provide systems for logging and intrusion detection, and build frameworks for administrators to securely manage government networks (Oxlenhandler, 2003). This chapter discusses some of the cost-effective measures needed to address government agency information security vulnerabilities and related threats.
Assessing Information Security Vulnerabilities and Threats to Implementing Security Mechanism and Security Policy Audit
