OPM Data Breach - Whitehouse Petition - Help Wanted

Fri Jun 19 14:43:08 UTC 2015

No I intentionally left those out.  Here is why.  If they would do small incremental work, they don’t get into the areas of congressional approval and GSA.  You can just do the small incremental projects under your IT operations budgeting. There is a big misconception that everything requires congressional approval or a lot of red tape to get done, it is all about thresholds.  If you wanted to replace an old obsolete switch or router, you don't need to go there.  If you propose to replace 10,000 switches and routers, then you would.

Steven Naslund
Chicago IL

>>On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 9:55 AM, Darden, Patrick <Patrick.Darden at p66.com> wrote:
>> Good point.  It's a massive job, and sometimes it is best to look at those piecemeal.  Start with small goals, and pick low hanging fruit--your example of the server room is good.  Set it up with and IDS, a firewall, harden the >>hosts by turning off/removing unused/unneeded services, setting up tripwire, and encrypt all data on the drives, then look to password policy enforcement.  Then start actively securing it (monthly audits, daily log checks, etc.).  >>Doable.  Then pick the next lowest hanging fruit and repeat.

>You left out:
>    Formulate Bid Solicitation team
>    Procure funding for Bid Solicitation team
>    Request Congressional approval for Bid Solicitation team
>    Request funding for team to win Congressional approval of Bid Solicitation team
>    Receive first round funding for team to win Congressional approval.....
>    Director retires, project status in limbo
>    New round of higher funding sought
>    Congressional recess, projects in limbo
>    Bid process begins, 3 of 4 are non-GSA and require further funding for new approval process
>    After 2 years of paperwork, initial funding for 2 year old IDS
>v1.1 (that's what was approved!) is approved.
>    repeat, ad nauseam

>-Jim P.