In a report published August 25, a number of California state agencies have been found to not be complying with California’s Information Technology Standards.
The state Auditor, Elaine Howle, recently stated that many agencies are currently vulnerable to a security breach of sensitive information like Social Security numbers, health information, and tax returns.
The California Department of Technology is responsible for creating security standards that provide the security and privacy policy structure that state entities under the direct authority of the governor must comply. But research has shown that most reporting entities have weak controls over their information systems and don’t appear to be fully compliant with the information security & privacy policies, standards and procedures.
Howle’s report states the Department of Technology has failed to ensure agencies are complying with IT standards. A voluntary “self-certification” of compliance was poorly worded and confusing, leading many agencies to think that they were complying when they weren’t.
Although the Department of Technology has responded to this report stating they’re working to “improve the state’s overall information security posture”, government entities are a prime target for information security breaches and having this gone unseen for such a long period of time could be detrimental to the state and all individuals involved.
With government agencies keeping widespread amounts of confidential data, it’s vitally important that these organizations have security standards and policies in place to not only spot the breach but stop the breach entirely.
The idea of security best practices have been developed for a reason, and without them in place, breaches will continue to escalate. With NNT’s Change Tracker Gen7, an organization will be equipped with solutions like File Integrity Monitoring and Change & Configuration Management to help protect individual’s credentials and information from a possible breach.
Learn about the State of California Data Security Beach Reporting
Read the article on the Associated Press here