The U.S. Energy Department could endanger information stored at U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories if it fails to rapidly upgrade its computer security infrastructure, the agency's inspector general concluded in a report last month (see GSN, Nov. 17).
The department's Science Office has held up efforts to bolster measures for protecting computer systems, a trend that threatens to waste more than $3.3 million in federal funds, the report asserts.
The Energy Department office -- which manages operations at 10 national laboratories and supports work at the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore laboratories, among others -- has not instituted security measures that comply with federal regulations established by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, according to the auditors. The standards address the encryption of data and means of accessing computer systems.
"Any system that is not as secure as it should be could be subject to compromise. There are literally thousands of people who scan systems to try to gain access," said DOE Deputy Inspector General Rickey Hass.
The Energy Department has been hit by security mishaps in the past: a former Los Alamos scientist confessed in 2000 to illicitly copying sensitive information, and attacks on DOE computers in 2007 might have enabled outsiders to view details about visitors to the Oak Ridge site (Angela Hill, ABC News, Dec. 22).