The Department of Homeland Security has issued a statement citing the possible association of an Interior Department-run shared services data center with a breach that may have exposed records of 4 million current and former federal employees at the Office of Personnel Management, Government Executive reported Friday.Although the potential link between the data facility and the cyber attack is still being investigated, agency and industry experts believe the breach is less likely to undermine the U.S. government’s push towards shared information technology services, Charles S. Clark writes.
Samuel Schumach, press secretary at OPM, said that “for several years the government has been implementing a strategy to increasingly move to IT shared services.â€
Schumach told the publication that the adoption of such services “can help improve IT management, strengthen security, increase efficiency and reduce costs.â€
John Marshall, founder and CEO of the Shared Services Leadership Coalition, said he believes the cybersecurity incident will not affect the government’s transition to shared services, which he says aim to address the “proliferation of nonstandardized platforms that are getting older and haven’t been enhanced to the level of security alignment we have today,” according to the report.
