43 percent of U.S. Government security and compliance professionals believe dysfunctional Congress is biggest security threat

Tripwire, Inc., a provider of risk-based security and compliance management solutions, and the Government Technology Research Alliance (GTRA), a non-profit organization dedicated to the development and success of the government IT community announced on Feb. 6 the results of a U.S. Government cybersecurity survey.

The jointly sponsored online survey evaluated the attitudes and responses of 111 security and compliance professionals from U.S. Government agencies and contractors.

“Cybersecurity continues to be one of the top priorities of senior executives in the federal government,” said Ron Ross, fellow at National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Key findings from the survey include:

• 60 percent believe the new NIST framework will improve security.
• 55 percent believe government IT security has improved due to the administration’s policies.
• 46 percent say they have seen reductions in risk due to continuous monitoring efforts.
• 43 percent of IT security and compliance employees consider poor governance and the dysfunctional Congress “the biggest security threat we face.”

“While these findings show that we have made some progress on federal cybersecurity, we still have a long way to go,” said Parham Eftekhari, executive vice president of research and co-founder of GTRA. “Our hope is that by partnering with federal agency CIOs and industry thought leaders like Tripwire, we can generate thought-provoking research that will help spur dialog and ultimately increase the rate of change.”